Domain Drama
Welcome
Some dramatic stuff is going down right now for a few of the powerful organizations that run the Internet.
Dear Reader,
Some dramatic stuff is going down right now for a few of the powerful organizations that run the Internet. The .org top-level domain, as you probably know, is home to many charities and nonprofit organizations. Traditionally, the price of a .org domain has been kept low to make it affordable for small-time community organizations and charities. But sometime last year, the Internet Society (ISOC) announced a plan to remove the price caps. They put the question up for public comment and received more than 3,000 comments opposing this idea and 6 in favor of it. In spite of the resounding level of disapproval, they went ahead with the plan. A new contract that removed the price caps was announced in July 2019.
Before going on I should expand a few of these nested acronyms: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a nonprofit corporation that contracts with the nonprofit Internet Society (ISOC) for maintaining the .org namespace. ISOC created a nonprofit corporation called the Public Interest Registry (PIR) to manage .org. So PIR was the entity that actually removed the price caps.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
KDE for People Initiative Calls for AI Ban in Plasma
A new community of KDE wants the project to adopt a strict no-AI policy for KDE Plasma.
-
KDE Sets Ambitious Goals for 2026 and Beyond
KDE Connect reveals the goals for the Linux desktop darling, with one of those goals long overdue.
-
It’s Time to Test Fedora 45 Beta
Fedora 45 beta has been released with updated Gnome, KDE Plasma, and kernel.
-
Ubuntu Stonking Stingray Gets Even Rustier
Ubuntu 26.10 has completed its migration to the Rust-based coreutils.
-
AI Fixes Linux Bottlenecks Using “Hideous” Code
A Linux developer used AI to fix bottlenecks that caused problems when building the kernel. The resulting AI-generated code needed a lot of work.
-
Advanced Video Coding Still Under Patent
Brazilian patent BRPI0109962B1 has expired, which means that DivX and Xvid are no longer problematic for Linux, but it doesn’t mean that video is all of a sudden fully unleashed.
-
2,000 Vulnerabilities per Linux Release
Thanks to AI bug hunters, the Linux kernel is seeing record numbers of vulnerabilities, and it's overwhelming developers.
-
Linux Exempt from California’s Age Verification Law
So long as Linux is distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses, the OS is exempt from being required to verify the age of its users in California.
-
Roll Out the Cake: Linux Turns 35
35 years ago, a Finnish student began a humble project that would forever change the course of technology.
-
China Switching from Windows to Linux
China has ordered several government agencies to drop a Chinese-developed version of Windows 10 in favor of either KylinOS or UOS.