Earlier this year we announced our first wave of successful DNS Fund applicants. We’re now pleased to share that a further three projects have kicked off. Following our interview with Simon Kelley about Dnsmasq, we spoke to another individual maintainer supported by the Fund about what it takes to build open DNS software.
Miek Gieben is the creator of widely used DNS tools – (Go)dns and CoreDNS. These projects have attracted an impressive community of contributors and followers. After many years of maintaining open DNS software voluntarily, support from the Nominet DNS Fund has helped him register a company in the Netherlands and dedicate more time to the work.
In this Q&A, he talks about making the “plumbing” of the internet easier to use, why self-hosting matters, and how support from the DNS Fund is helping him build the next generation of DNS software – and why other individual maintainers should apply.
For those of us who aren’t DNS experts, what are you working on?
I’m building faster, more accessible tools for the DNS. I first built a Go-based library that became hugely popular, and now I’m developing a next-generation version (dnsv2) and a new server (atomdns). The goal is to make DNS as approachable as building a basic web server, so more people can experiment, learn and improve the underlying infrastructure.
What’s new or different about dnsv2 and atomdns?
Dnsv2 is about being faster, leaner and easier – less CPU and less memory. Atomdns builds on that, as a modern successor to CoreDNS but focused more on running on your own servers rather than just in cloud or Kubernetes setups. Together, they’re meant to make it simpler to test new ideas in DNS and to run your own reliable, flexible DNS infrastructure.
Why should an everyday internet user care about any of this?
In a perfect world, everyday users should not have to think about DNS – it’s part of the internet’s plumbing. You only notice it when it goes wrong. But the tools I’m building help developers and operators keep that plumbing safe and resilient. Easier DNS tooling means faster experimentation, better security features, and better services. Users don’t see the code, but they benefit from fewer outages and a healthier internet ecosystem.
What long‑term impact do you hope your project will have?
I want people to be able to tinker with the DNS as easily as they can spin up a web app – at home, in labs, in companies. That’s how you get innovation. I also hope that standards bodies and implementers can quickly prototype new DNS ideas, test them in the wild, and refine the protocol. If my software helps the internet evolve, I’ll be very happy.
How has the DNS Fund changed what’s possible for you?
I’ve wanted to start a company since I was about 20 and never did it, so this felt like the perfect opportunity to finally do it. I’d been doing DNS work for fun in evenings and weekends, but the Fund gave me the confidence and reason to register my own company and treat the work as something more professional.
It also gives me the breathing space to do the hard thinking, especially around resolvers, which are one of the most complex parts of DNS. Instead of squeezing work into nights and weekends, I can dedicate time to designing, testing and improving the tools. Having a company also makes it easier to unlock more funds in future and maybe involve students from the university where I work.
What would you say to someone who’s on the fence about applying to the DNS Fund?
If you’re working on something that quietly keeps the internet running – or makes it easier for others to do that – you should absolutely apply. You just need a clear idea of the problem you’re tackling and why it helps the DNS ecosystem. The team understands this space, they’re open to conversation, and the support can be genuinely transformative.
So much of the internet still runs on code written in spare time. The DNS Fund offers maintainers and developers a way to move from late‑night fixes to properly resourced work that benefits everyone. If you’re maintaining a critical DNS project on your own – or have an idea to strengthen the DNS – make sure to apply.
The current application window closes on the 17th August 2026.
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