Is there a community product maintaining Windows support?

[Danny Mayer]

As the original developer of the Windows version of bind9, I can tell 
you that ISC has removed support for the WIndows version from their 
newer versions of the code and there are other changes that would need a 
lot of work to catch back up. Since BIND9 is under continuous 
development you'd be in a constant race to keep up. It's not worth the 
effort. I have recommended that you use the docker image version of 
BIND9 and run that on your Windows box.

Danny

On 2/17/22 7:42 AM, Jakob Bohm via bind-users wrote:
> Fortunately (or unfortunately), the existing port of the 9.16.x bind 
> code to Windows is built with Microsoft tools (MSVC2019) and contains 
> its own handling of differences between Windows and Unix.
>
> If a maintainer stepped up to maintain the source for a port, I could 
> compile it locally for our own systems, as I happen to also be a 
> software developer using bind to support that activity.
>
> I know that there is a project that builds a 3rd party installer for 
> the Windows port (I currently use the simple upstream install utility 
> that is included in the ISC binary download), and I was hoping that 
> maybe someone from that installer project could extend it to also 
> maintain the port itself.
>
> On 2022-02-11 18:02, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>> I just became a maintainer on the apcupsd project.
>>
>> I don't know if bind for windows is built like apcupsd is, by using 
>> mingw32 but unfortunately there's problems with the mingw32 project 
>> these days, it's gone through a lot of transitions.
>>
>> Getting a working build environment for apcupsd at least, requires
>> using pretty old versions of mingw.
>>
>> No doubt I'm going to be jumped on for saying so but I know for
>> apcupsd I've got a -lot- of work to do to get it up to speed.
>>
>> There are some people out there who have built their own mingw32/mingw64
>> binaries that are separate from the ones "officially" distributed which
>> might be an avenue.  My guess the ISC developer who was spearheading
>> this port moved on to other things and ISC can't find someone who
>> wants to get involved in this and I can understand why.
>>
>> There is an interesting article on this problem here:
>>
>> https://increment.com/open-source/the-rise-of-few-maintainer-projects/
>>
>> I would ask you this Jakob - would you trust a windows binary of
>> bind that you compiled?
>>
>> I've got years of history participating on the apcupsd project. When
>> I start submitting changes to it, the users of it have that trust 
>> automatically from that history.  They won't worry if they download a
>> binary from sourceforge that I built that it's going to gun their 
>> system.  I'm a public figure in OSS besides that - people may like me
>> or think I'm an asshole - but they know I'm a real person who has a
>> rep. to maintain.  I've got a business, federal and state tax ID's,
>> a published phone number, multiple domain names I've owned for 
>> years.  I can't run and hide.
>>
>> You can probably review the bind mailing list and dig out less than
>> 100 names of people who have been on it, regularly posting, for the last
>> decade.
>>
>> If none of those people step up to create a fork - then the windows 
>> port  is effectively going to be dead I'm afraid. Nobody is going to 
>> trust "some dude" with zero history who sets up on github and forks 
>> bind and posts a windows binary for downloading just because he says 
>> it's gold.
>> Would you?  Trust a production system to that?
>>
>> OSS got it's start by making the CODE available, NOT BINARIES. Users
>> like you were expected to be completely happy with the fact that the 
>> code was even there at all and it compiled.   You do your own building.
>> Not knowing how to run a compiler is no excuse.  The Internet has tons
>> of tutorials on it.
>>
>> You want a bind for windows - build it yourself.  That's the can-do 
>> attitude that OSS started with.  I remember the first time I ever 
>> downloaded an real OSS code and built it myself.  It was rzsz - zmodem
>> code for windows.  Back in the BBS days, really.  That's the only way
>> you got that binary.  It was a total gas and I was hooked. Don't deny
>> yourself the same pleasure.
>>
>> Ted
>>
>>
>> On 2/11/2022 8:24 AM, Jakob Bohm via bind-users wrote:
>>> As ISC has apparently announced that it will no longer maintain the 
>>> code for running bind on Windows operating systems, and that this is 
>>> now up to the community, is there a community group that has stepped 
>>> up to the task?
>>>
> Enjoy
>
> Jakob