[MaraDNS list] How to get MaraDNS and Deadwood to talk to each other?

[Sam Trenholme]

> Just so I understand, you're saying that Deadwood should bind to a ULA
> address, but just the SQA regression is broken?  The only compile-time flags
> that I can observe being passed for IPv6 is -DIPV6.

That is correct.  Deadwood correctly binds to a ULA address, but the
SQA regression for making sure Deadwood works with IPv6 is broken
(it's roughly a two-line fix, but I'm not doing it right now because I
really need to stop having MaraDNS distract from my day job).

IPv6 works with Deadwood in theory--well, except for ugly corner cases
like glueless NS referrals which have AAAA but no A records--but this
has not been tested.

> So, that problem is solved.  Celebrate!

I'm glad you have resolved your issue.

> it seems like the two daemons should try to link
> to each other in some format.

My original plan was to merge Deadwood's code with MaraDNS'
authoritative code.  Unfortunately, Deadwood took a couple of years
longer to finish than I thought it originally would, and I got engaged
and married before Deadwood was fully recursive.

I don't know if your engaged or married, Joshua, so please don't take
this the wrong way: I discovered that marriage changed my fundamental
life priorities.  I realized I no longer had time to perform
professional quality software development "for fun and for free" any
more.

So, I made a promise to declare Deadwood and MaraDNS finished once
full recursion was implemented, and canceled plans to merge Deadwood
with MaraDNS.  I finished Deadwood in September of 2010 and have been
only maintaining Deadwood and MaraDNS since then. [1]

I think these things are worthwhile to do.  I think one advantage
MaraDNS and Deadwood have is security, yes, and Deadwood has the best
security a recursive DNS server can have short of implementing DNSSEC
[2] [3].  I think another advantage is that Deadwood is tiny and
MaraDNS really small; this works really great in MIPS routers and
other embedded environments.

Since I am no longer in a position to implement significant new
features for MaraDNS and Deadwood, I would love to hand things over to
a maintainer.  I am not going to hand over the reins lightly; anyone
who becomes MaraDNS' maintainer would have to demonstrate a long-term
interest in MaraDNS' code base that lasts at least a year.  Also, I
ask that they increase the major version number of MaraDNS and
Deadwood (MaraDNS 3 and Deadwood 4, or more simply MaraDNS/Deadwood 4)
and I will continue to fix security problems found in MaraDNS 1, as
well as performing basic bug fixes for MaraDNS 2, Deadwood 2, and
Deadwood 3.

- Sam

[1] To be pedantic, I used to ask for donations and passed a tip hat
around so that I could get paid to work on MaraDNS.  My hopefully
final funding drive was last November; I got enough money to touch up
a couple of minor things that didn't get in to Deadwood 3.0, and to
fully babysit MaraDNS until mid-March.  [4]

[2] This does not mean security problems are never discovered in
Deadwood or MaraDNS.  It, however, means that I take responsibility
for said security problems and issue updates.

[3] http://maradns.org/deadwood/doc/Recursive-algorithm.html

[4] I will no longer be regularly looking at the mailing list as of
March 15; people with MaraDNS support concerns will have to wait until
around the end of the month for me to respond to queries posted here
after that date.