The open source world will soon have a new category of code to offer: DNS registry management software.
NZ Registry Services, the company that operates New Zealand’s domain registry, has decided to release the source code under the GPL licence.
Registry manager Nick Griffin says he doesn’t expect large number of downloads of the software when it is released on January 30. “There have been expressions of interest. Whether that converts into people picking up the system and using it remains to be seen,” he says. “I’m not working on the theory that we’re going to get a lot.”
After all, there’s only a limited number of DNS registries which could use the software, Griffin says. “It’s not like an accounting system where everybody has to have one.”
Releasing the SRS software as open source will complete an open source circle. It is built upon two popular open source development tools, the Perl scripting language and the PostgreSQL database. Griffin says the implementation kit (RIK) given to registrars has already been open-sourced.
When InternetNZ approved the creation of the shared registry system, it asked that the software ultimately be released as open source. “We’re sort of executing that desire,” Griffin says.
SRS staff are working on documentation for the software. Griffin says registries that have similar process systems would be able to use it with few alterations, but others might need to adapt it. The software is likely to be offered for download from a popular open source repository such as freshmeat.net or SourceForge.net.
Griffin says the software has performed well in production and staff haven’t needed to make serious changes. “We have done a lot of little things, rather than anything radical,” he says. “The guys who sat down and worked it through did a very good job, I think.
“Of all the major outages we’ve had, none of those were as a direct result of the SRS actually failing.”
Griffin won’t reveal the book value of the software.