OpenNIC is a user controlled Network Information Center offering a democratic and non-national alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries. http://wiki.opennicproject.org/HomePage
I like the idea behind the project, but from personal experience I decided that I had to switch to another provider that had more robust infrastructure and regularly patched their machines. DNS is too critical and I felt the risk of having my DNS requests hijacked by a compromised machine was too great.
(Also, who down-voted the parent comment? Bizarre, maybe that was accidental?)