Planned $1.1B Sale of.Org Angers Many Open Source Crypto Developers

In the world of open-source software, a.org top-level domain - think linux.org and bitcoin.org - has always been an imprimatur of philosophical adherence and, to a degree, quality.

Now the.org top-level domain is going into private hands, a move that is frustrating both traditional and blockchain open-source developers.

With blockchain projects depending more and more on open source contributions, the move could also affect the crypto industry.

The big problem is that non-profits have limited funds and they fear that the domain prices will rise beyond a level that they can afford," said Peter Wilfahrt, co-founder of Versangigant.

Although moving the TLD into private hands shouldn't change much technically, it effectively removes the price cap associated with.org domains, allowing squatters to set outlandish prices for sought-after domains.

"There are a number of grave concerns about this transaction, especially as it happened in close proximity to ICANN's decision to remove price increase caps on.org domains. For the nonprofits that rely on those domains as part of their brand, these two events may prove to be disastrous," said Cohen.

Decentralized DNS?A number of blockchain devs are concerned with the.org sale primarily because they see it as a typical move by a centralized organization.

Some open-source blockchain developers won't pay for expensive domain names simply because their stakeholders won't allow it.

"I'm not sure the Decred stakeholders would go along with a significant increase in the cost of domain registration," said Decred head of Research & Strategy, RichardRed0x.

Open-source proponents maintain that as long as there is upwards of $30 million to be made on a single domain name there is very little incentive for ICANN and domain brokers to want to change the system.