Paul Vixie is an American computer scientist whose technical contributions include

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...

(DNS) protocol design and procedure, mechanisms to achieve operational robustness of DNS implementations, and significant contributions to open source software principles and methodology. He also created and launched the first successful commercial anti-spam service. He authored the standard

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

system programs ''SENDS'', ''proxynet'', ''rtty'' and

Vixie cron The cron command-line utility is a job scheduler on Unix-like operating systems. Users who set up and maintain software environments use cron to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts), also known as cron jobs, to run periodically at fixed ti ...

. At one point he ran his own consulting business, Vixie Enterprises.

Career

Vixie was a software engineer at

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unti ...

(DEC) from 1988 to 1993. After he left DEC in 1994, he founded Internet Software Consortium (ISC) in 1996 together with Rick Adams and Carl Malamud to support BIND and other software for the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

. The activities of ISC were assumed by a new company, Internet Systems Consortium in 2004. Although ISC operates the F root name server, Vixie at one point joined the

Open Root Server Network Open Root Server Network (ORSN) was a network of Domain Name System root nameservers for the Internet. ORSN DNS root zone information was kept in synchronization with the "official" Domain Name System root nameservers coordinated by ICANN. The n ...

(ORSN) project and operated their L root server. In 1995 he cofounded the Palo Alto Internet Exchange ( PAIX) and, after Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN) bought it in 1999, served as the chief technology officer to MFN / AboveNet and later as the president of PAIX.Executive Profile: Paul Vixie
Bloomberg (accessed 25 March 2017). In 1998 he cofounded

Mail Abuse Prevention System The Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) is an organization that provides anti-spam support by maintaining a DNSBL. They provide five black lists, categorising why an address or an IP block is listed: * Real-time Blackhole List (RBL), the one for w ...

(MAPS), a

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

non-profit company with the goal of stopping email abuse. Vixie is the author of several

Request for Comments A Request for Comments (RFC) is a publication in a series from the principal technical development and standards-setting bodies for the Internet, most prominently the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An RFC is authored by individuals or ...

(RFC)s, including a Best Current Practice document on "Classless IN-ADDR.ARPA Delegation" (BCP 20), and some

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

software. He stated in 2002 that he "now hold the record for 'most CERT advisories due to a single author.'" In 2008, Vixie served as a judge for the Mozilla Foundation's "Download Day", an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for most downloads in a single day for a new piece of software. Vixie served on the board of trustees of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) from 2005 to 2013, and served as chairman in 2009 and 2010. Vixie also serves on the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN. Vixie attended George Washington High School in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endow ...

in 2011. In 2013, after nearly 20 years at ISC, he founded a new company, Farsight Security, Inc. spinning off the Security Business Unit from ISC. In 2014, Vixie was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as an Innovator.

Realizations

BIND BIND () is a suite of software for interacting with the Domain Name System (DNS). Its most prominent component, named (pronounced ''name-dee'': , short for ''name daemon''), performs both of the main DNS server roles, acting as an authoritative ...

*Vixie cron * DHCP * sendmail

Publications

Book

Patent

*United States Patent 6,581,090, "Internet communication system," issued October 1996.

References

External links

Paul Vixie's CircleID Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vixie, Paul Living people Writers from California American computer scientists Free software programmers American technology writers Computer science writers Digital Equipment Corporation people Unix people American technology chief executives American chief technology officers Open source advocates 1963 births