MS getting rid of SAMBA?

BenRussoUSA writes "In this ZDNet story . Brian Behlendorf of Apache, Jeremy Allison of SAMBA, Miguel de Icaza of Ximian and now MONO and Eric Allman of Sendmail are all quoted in a story regarding a nasty rumor. Microsoft may be planning to include a Microsoft patented technology at a crucial interoperability point in .NET and maybe the next version of CIFS. Could this spell the end of SAMBA?"

Comments

Hmm

[Have Blue]

Among the unexpected features Mac OS X 10.1 will include: A built-in SMB client. I wonder what effect that had on MS's decision.

Re:OK, so what patent is it?

[NumberSyx]

AFAIK, you can't patent software in Australia, where Samba is developped. So, even if there were such a (US) patent, it would not stop Samba.

Once the Samba Team did the work and built a port of the new protocol, they would never be able to visit the US, or they would be arrested by the Microsoft Division of the FBI.

Re:Yawn. Why not a GPL'd NFS driver for windows.

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

> samba still cannot serve the "user list" to
> windows 9x machines for USER level sharing.

Finally fixed in Samba 2.2.1a. I'm sure you'll now upgrade... :-) :-).

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Clients are good for lock-in, Servers bad.

[Speare]

Microsoft must be overjoyed that Mac OS X.1 and Linux and Unix all have popular SMB clients. Woo hoo! Desktops of all kinds are locking in the value of having a nice Microsoft-controlled backoffice.

It's the servers of SMB which are the thorn in Microsoft's side. A decent Samba server runs on Linux just fine, which robs Microsoft of all that wonderful lock-in. A Microsoft backoffice solution can be replaced with a drop-in equivalent, and not one desktop user even notices the difference (except there's fewer i.t. emails out to the organization about downtime).

Every time a fully functional drop-in replacement is possible, Microsoft will attempt to change the game to break that possibility. Desktops are hard to replace fully, because every single user has to make a very personal commitment (either by paycheck or choice) to learn all the little differences. Servers are easy to replace without much hardship, and Microsoft knows this. Hence, .net and kerberos tweaks and other closed or extended standards.

Re:turn it around then...

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

It won't work. Samba requires working seteuid() calls, and full POSIX locking functionality, which is not possible to emulate in a Win32 program (although probably possible in a native NT API program, via hidden calls - you know, the ones Microsoft claim don't exist :-).

That's why Microsoft's "Services for UNIX" product must have a kernel component - Win32 locking is unbearably primitive compared to POSIX locking. We can emulate Win32 locking semantics on top of POSIX, but it's not possible to do this the other way around.

Regards,

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Why not an open source solution?

[RobertAG]

WHY do we have to use Microsoft's file server software at all? Why not just write a secure, open source NT/2000 service that can share directories? This can be accessed by a secure, open source client that sits on a NT/2000/9x/Linux/UNIX machine. This (sort of) was done with SSH. There are 3rd party solutions for NNTP, SMTP, POP, IMAP, HTTP, etc. Why not file sharing?

Terrible Article

[0xA]

I read the article twice and I really don't see the issue.

From reading the article I understand that there is the potential for Samba or any other open source app that realies on CIFS to have to mimic a function that happens when a user changes their password (I am asuming that this is part of MS/CHAP). The problem being that MS might hold a patent on something, that possibly would have to be implimented by said open source app and as a result MS could charge some sort of licencing fee. Maybe

What a friggin joke! The author comes up with a scenario which is has no factual basis, decides it could be a bad thing and then get various people in the community to provide quotes that agree with him.

This is FUD, a pure and perfect example of FUD. ZDnet is getting worse evey year.

Patents + Microsoft = Slashdot MegaThread

[Zeinfeld]

When I started reading the article there were 0 posts, by the time I finished over a hundred.

As with all large companies Microsoft files lots of ridiculous patents. They do it for the same reason mine does, so that if they are sued by another company thay have something for swapsies.

It would probably not be a good thing for Microsoft if their customers could not attach Linux file systems easily. SAMBA is simply collateral damage in the high stakes game between EMC and Microsoft. EMC servers are very expensive and Microsoft would love to play bigger on that turf.

The bigger problem is that in the crackpot US PTO scheme you never know if a patent has been applied for on something until the government awards a 20 year monopoly in practicing it. The rules have been improved, i.e. made less open to corrupt abuse but they are still an extortionists charter.

I can't remember the last time Microsoft was the plaintif in a Patent lawsuit. They have been the victim of many Patent Trolls.

It would be an idiotic strategy for Microsoft to try to use patents to make .NET proprietary. But then again the tax cut for the ultra-rich and breaking the ABM treaty to build a 21st century Maginot line are crackpot ideas.