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MS getting rid of SAMBA?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the when-samba-gets-stable-get-rid-of-samba dept.

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?"

4 of 475 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by Have+Blue · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Re:OK, so what patent is it? by NumberSyx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --

    "Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
    -Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development

  3. Clients are good for lock-in, Servers bad. by Speare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  4. Re:turn it around then... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.