Paul Vixie

Paul Vixie is an American Internet pioneer, the author of several RFCs and well-known Unix software author.

Vixie attended George Washington High School in San Francisco, California. He received a Ph.D in computer science from Keio University in 2011.

He authored the standard UNIX system programs SENDS, proxynet, rtty and Vixie cron. At one point he ran his own consulting business, Vixie Enterprises.

After he left DEC in 1994, he founded Internet Software Consortium (ISC) together with Rick Adams and Carl Malamud to support BIND and other software for the Internet. The activities of ISC were assumed by a new company, Internet Systems Consortium in 2004. Although ISC operates the F root server, Vixie at one point joined the Open Root Server Network (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.

In 1998, he cofounded MAPS (Mail Abuse Prevention System), a California nonprofit company with the goal of stopping email abuse.

Vixie has stated 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 was elected to the ARIN Board of Trustees in 2005, and was elected Chairman in 2009 and re-elected in 2010.

Vixie also serves on the Security and Stability Advisory Committee of ICANN.