OpenNIC

OpenNIC is a user owned and controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic, non-national, alternative to the traditional ICANN-operated Top-Level Domain registries.

As of 2006 users of the OpenNIC DNS servers are able to resolve all existing ICANN top-level domains including the general-purpose TLD's (such as .com or .org) and the two-letter country codes (such as .au or .uk). In addition, users are able to resolve top-level domains in the OpenNIC namespace as well as other alternative DNS root servers with which there are peering agreements.

Membership in the OpenNIC is open to every user of the Internet. All decisions are made either by a democratically elected administrator or through a direct ballot of the interested members and all decisions, regardless of how they are made, are appealable to a vote of the general membership.

Like all alternative root DNS systems, OpenNIC-hosted domains are unreachable to the vast majority of the Internet. Only specific configuration in one's DNS resolver makes these reachable, and very few Internet service providers have this configuration.

The History of OpenNIC

On June 1st of 2000, an article was posted on kuro5hin.org advocating the need for a democratically governed domain name system. Out of the resulting discussion, the OpenNIC was born. By the end of July the root-servers were in full operation, several top-level domains had been introduced, and OpenNIC began peering of the AlterNIC namespace. In March of 2001 peering began of Pacific Root and in September a search engine was announced which was dedicated to the OpenNIC namespace.

Since its first year of operation, OpenNIC has been mentioned frequently on kuro5hin.org, Slashdot, Wired.com and other internet news sites, and is commonly suggested on newsgroups and forums to those seeking an alternative to ICANN name resolution. It has become a stable, well-established root server used by members of the internet around the world.

OpenNIC Top Level Domains

Each OpenNIC Top Level Domain has its own policies regarding acceptable use. New TLD's may be created subject to OpenNIC stated policies.

.fur

Sites related to or otherwise associated with furry fandom. This TLD's purpose in life is to bring a unique identity to furry fans across the internet.

.geek

Chartered for use by Geek-oriented sites, including anything of a personal or hobbyist nature. This description is deliberately vague to reflect the huge range of interests that might qualify.

.glue

Used for root server administration and for peering purposes. The only domain names that exist for this TLD are those that are used for each system on the peer.

.indy

Intended for use by organizations and individuals of the independent media and arts, and keeping primarily with the spirit of "indie" press, music, etc. The definition is flexible, however corporate media outlets need not apply.

.null

Miscellaneous non-commercial individual sites. Described by its authority to be the OpenNIC analog of Usenet's alt hierarchy.

.oss

Reserved exclusively for open-source software projects.

.parody

A venue for non-commercial parody work. Having a TLD designated to works of parody removes any claims that a website could be mistaken for a business site, and thus eliminates the possibility of claims of trademark infringement.

At this time, there are no peering arrangements with other alternative DNS root servers. Former peering agreements existed with the long-defunct AlterNIC, in hopes it ever came up, and Pacific Root, which seemed to cease resolution sometime in late 2004.

External links

• OpenNIC main site
• OpenNIC: Public Name Servers
• OpenNIC: Members' Forum
• OpenNIC: Search 1 Search 2
• XWhois

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article OpenNIC on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

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