[MaraDNS list] MaraDNS update: Article has survived Wikipedia deletion attempt

[Sam Trenholme]

Bradly, Bradly, my dear.  TANSTAAFL.  There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

> I'm a little stymied by this. A decade ago, MaraDNS was a capable
> enterprise DNS solution - one which I myself deployed as the the primary
> DNS service for a few fortune 500 companies.

MaraDNS — or should I say, Deadwood — is a better recursive DNS server
than MaraDNS’ recursion was 10 years ago.

> But then, it kind of fell into, not bit rot, but certainly neglect.

MaraDNS 1.0 came out then I returned to college.  I then was getting a
college degree, not making professional software “for fun and for
free” any more.  Right after I graduated from college, I release
MaraDNS 1.2, which offered a lot, including a completely new zone file
format.

> With that sort of varied history, and your intentions to 'wind down' the
> project, there seems to be an inference that people should look to other
> software solutions as a more viable alternative to continued
> consideration or use of MaraDNS.

Well, Bradly, I would love to develop MaraDNS for fun and for free so
that people such as the companies can profit from my uncompensated
hard work, but, you know, I have a wife and a kid to feed.  I just
can’t go to the grocery store and tell the cashier “you know, I make
this great piece of open source software, so you should give me free
groceries”.  Ditto with my landlord.

> If the project does wind down, I seriously doubt that MaraDNS will
> survive in the wiki until your grandchildren are old enough to read.

You obviously don’t understand how the Wiki works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NTEMP

“once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in
accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to
have ongoing coverage.”

Again, Bradly, I will not work for you or for your enterprises for
free.  No, they will not delete the MaraDNS article 10 years
later...it is notable today, so it will be notable (using the Wiki’s
definition of “notable”) 10 or 100 years from today.  Thank you for
playing.

The bottom line is this Bradly: A decade ago, DNS *was* something
simple enough that a single developer could write a viable DNS server
in their spare time for fun and for free.  That’s why we got djbdns.
That’s why we got MaraDNS.

But then DNS became a monstrosity — namely DNSSEC.  I would love to
give MaraDNS DNSSEC, but it is going to take serious cash to happen:

http://maradns.org/products.html

There is not a single recursive DNS server with DNSSEC out there that
was not funded.  Both BIND and Unbound — the only two recursive DNS
servers with DNSSEC — got serious corporate and government funding.
Those people did not deploy DNSSEC for fun and for free.  And it’s
pretty damn unfair for you to ask me to do so.

There has not been a single release or update to djbdns for well over
a decade.  Despite not getting funding, I made a new MaraDNS release
earlier this year, and will probably make another one next year.
MaraDNS is getting updates — This year’s release updated MaraDNS to
work with RedHat/CentOS 6.

Trust me, Bradly, I have asked employers, during interviews, whether
they would be willing to pay for me to work on MaraDNS all day one a
week or once every other week.  I have yet to find an employer willing
to accommodate this request.

Ask yourself this, Bradly: Why is it that all these Fortune 500
companies are, instead of paying hard-working developers like me to
develop something like MaraDNS, are instead increasing their CEO pay
to ridiculous levels?  Why is it that we live in a world where
companies are rewarded for massive layoffs of hard-working employees?
Why is it that income inequality in the US has increased considerably
in the last decades?

> I get the impression, more often than not, that you tend to blog or make
> announcements based on your mood at the time, without ever going back
> and reading what you actually wrote.

No, Bradly, I have not.  The bottom line is this: I have been very
consistent since my 2009 announcement at
http://samiam.org/blog/old-200910-grow_up.html

“I'm growing up and realize that there are more important things than
making programs for fun and for free. Yes, I do want to finish up
Deadwood mainly to put closure on the project, but I don't think I'll
do any MaraDNS development besides basic bug fixes after MaraDNS 2.0
comes out.”

Yes, I had a funding drive two years ago, and yes I did add features
to MaraDNS and Deadwood as a result of the money raised from that
funding drive.  But it was not enough money to sustain full-time
MaraDNS development.

> That's certainly how you've been coming across now for about the last
> year and half, or at least since losing the sponsorship to work on
> MaraDNS full time as you had hoped for not long ago.

I never had sponsorship to work on MaraDNS full time.

TL;DR: Threats to stop using MaraDNS or to delete the MaraDNS
Wikipedia article will not make me work more on MaraDNS for fun and
for free.

- Sam