Bjoern Zeeb Awarded International Itojun Service Award

FreeBSD developer Bjoern Zeeb, who recently completed the FreeBSD Jail Based Virtualization Project, has been awarded the Itojun Service Award. From the press release:

The second Itojun Service Award was presented today at this week’s Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meeting in Beijing, China. Bjoern A. Zeeb received the award for his dedicated work to make significant improvements in open source implementations of IPv6. IPv6 is the next generation of Internet protocol that will help ensure the continued rapid growth of the Internet as a platform for innovation.

First awarded last year, the Itojun Service Award honours the memory of Dr. Jun-ichiro “itojun” Hagino, who passed away in 2007, aged just 37. The award, established by the friends of itojun and administered by the Internet Society (ISOC), recognises and commemorates the extraordinary dedication exercised by itojun over the course of IPv6 development.

“For many years, Bjoern has been a committed champion of, and contributor to, implementing IPv6 in open source operating systems used in servers, desktops, and embedded computer platforms, including those used by some of the busiest websites in the world,” said Jun Murai of the Itojun Service Award committee and Founder of the WIDE Project. “On behalf of the Itojun Service Award committee, I am extremely pleased to present this award to Bjoern for his outstanding work in support of IPv6 development and deployment.”

The Itojun Service Award is focused on pragmatic contributions to developing and deploying IPv6 in the spirit of serving the Internet. The award, expected to be presented annually, includes a presentation crystal, a US$3,000 honorarium, and a travel grant.

“This is a great honour, and I would like to thank the people who recommended me for the award and the committee for believing my work was valuable. I never met Itojun but he was one of the people helping me, and I have the highest respect for his massive foundational work,” said Bjoern A. Zeeb. “As the Internet community works to roll out IPv6 to more and more people all around the globe, we also need to help others–developers, businesses, and users–understand and use the new Internet protocols so that the vision Itojun was working so hard for comes true.”

Each Internet-connected device uses an IP address and, with the number of Internet-connected devices growing rapidly, the supply of unallocated IPv4 addresses is expected to be exhausted within the next year. To help ensure the continued rapid growth of the Internet, IPv6 provides a huge increase in the number of available addresses. And, while the technical foundations of IPv6 are well established, significant work remains to expand the deployment and use of IPv6.

IPv6 was developed within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet’s premier standards-making body responsible for the development of protocols used in IP-based networks. IETF participants represent an international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers involved in the technical operation of the Internet and the continuing evolution of Internet architecture.