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Samba Team Responds to Microsoft CIFS Spec License
Jeremy Allison - Samba Team writes: "The Samba Team has released a statement regarding the Microsoft CIFS specification license and its effect on Samba. Regards! Jeremy Allison" Reading this and the Microsoft CIFS Technical License raises a number of issues worth considering. The statement maintains that the specification details an old implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol, one Microsoft itself has abandoned. One wonders if the only reason they release such docs are as props for a court case or something.
Can't some fool like me (I hope I'm not volunteering) read the document, and then write his own version of the documentation with whatever license he wants?
Certainly I'm allowed to write whatever works I want, especially ones devoted to some obtuse piece of knowledge like this.
Jeremy Alisson - Samba Team, License to Kill. Makes networking sound like a killing method for elite spies.
I put in argument the reasons of the Microsoft, also. Sure, the workers of the samba is welcome only to translate their filesystem but if only they work several points behind Microsoft and with their leavings! This situation must be made up for opening all the software of the Microsoft to of reversal-engineering for all the scope in order levelling the field, otherwise if people can only work with the detailed lists that Microsoft wishes to give it and not with that what Microsoft really is using because of the DMCA nobody can hope to continue with the compatibility.
Why did they choose the name SaMBa?
Because of the SMB protocol?
Or because "Sambo" was already trademarked?
What's the story? Jeez.
As much as I like and support the Samba team, I think they're going to end up fighting a losing battle here - Microsoft won't give up its stranglehold on any facet of its operating system. And while in the old days, the would have just purchased the entire Samba project, now they have little choice but to try these sneaky strongarm tactics. After all these months/years of bashing the GPL and OSS in general, Microsoft can't just absorb and accept Samba - especially not in front of the courts.
A thought: How many snippets of Samba code do you think has found its way into, say, Windows 2000?
The future for Samba and SMB could be an interesting one. I'm using Win2K for all my work, but of course I have several Linux boxes setup for messing around with. The easiest way for the Windows box to transfer files is over Samba, it's just so much easier than FTP, and HTTP doesn't have all the capabilities I need. When I upgrade to XP or 2002 or whatever, I'm going to want to make sure I'm still able to access the Samba shares. If I can't, I hate to say it, but I may be forced to switch my network storage box to some Windows variant. Otherwise, what is the use if I don't have full access to my files across the network?
Who is modding this up. Copy and pasting is not informative? Did someone say "whore"?
Detests. Why does the supporters have always to stoop to the low level when they disseminate propoganda to oppose Microsoft?
To think about what kind of a paradox would be arise when complex licenses overlap. I think a valid point was brought up in why not make alternate documentation that wouldn't refer to the original license... I would think it would put all the liability on the head of someone who wrote the new docs... Personally I wish they could sort it down to plane English and short sentences. Kinda like the ten commandments for users. But someone has to feed all the starving lawyers I guess... lol. Sadly it does come down to how much political pressure and money you can throw at enforcing a license that makes it stand up...
Is Samba available for Win32 platforms?
I know this sounds like a strange question, but consider: Microsoft's SMB-based file sharing system is buggy and insecure. Could Samba be used as a drop-in replacement for regular Windows file sharing?
E.G.: you don't like Windows file sharing. So, you turn it off and install Samba instead. It works the same -- you wind up with shared folders that appear on the network -- but the sharing is being handled by Samba instead of the vanilla Win32 file sharing.
Is that possible? Maybe I'm suffering from hallucinations induced by too much Mountain Dew . . .
Uh, so it's a non-issue?
That's kind of what I thought when I first heard about this.
"Microsoft...documented basically what Samba already knows...and doesn't want people to...use the documentation for GNU purposes...Ok...what about what they already have? Oh, not affected? Ok."
Looks to me like Microsoft just got these reactions: Loving fanboy support(all three of them), people who could care less(most people), people who went into an idiotic rage(a lot, but not a majority), and people who scratched there heads and asked, "So?"(more than the first, less than the other catagories.)
I mean, basically all they did was brass off some of the geek community and make themselves look, well, dumb. No one really cares about their documentation...do they?
Interoperability is an important step in the migration path, and really being able to access everything directly via Windows Networking makes it easier to keep track of things. Instead of constantly having to switch paradigms and transfer files using a twenty-year old text service, Samba's ability to keep file transfers consistent with the other applications on the Windows workstation is a big plus. Wish I hadn't spent my last mod point already, because a lot of people think Samba is pointless baggage when it actually helps us support a lot of Windows machines inexpensively that we would have had to ditch otherwise.
Seriously though, if this isn't a show of how much of a monopoly they are, I don't know what is. Next thing you know, they'll force MS-TCP/IP out, and have a similar agreement saying that anything not under their license is not permitted.
How would Microsoft react if suddenly the open-source community decided that anything under the GNU could not inter-operate with microsoft products? I think MS would flip out kill whole town.
First off, the site is NOT slashdotted. Check for yourself. This is blatant karma whoring.
Second, this is an imposter, not the real CmdrTaco. The real CmdrTaco has a userid of #1, not #564483.
Check the user number- if it's not userid #1, it's not the real CmdrTaco.
If samba.org was slashdotted, this might be a useful post. But its not and it isn't!!
Although this particularly license has no real implications, and I think we can be sure Microsoft is aware of this, perhaps their is a more sinister goal here: testing the waters of anti-GPL and/or anti-free-software licenses.
What would happen, for example, if Windows were "licensed" to exclude its use in conjunction with certain free software -- such as -- oh say -- Wine. Wine works better with Windows binary libraries accessible, and Microsoft might be thinking about some kind of anti-free-software clause in the Windows license.
I suspect this obsolete Samba license is just a beta test of their newest scam.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
KAMMA, KAMMA, KAMMAHOOOAAHH!
First software, next electronic documents, then shrink wrapped books.
For now, the PR is that an electronic document is somehow different than a book. But that is not being argued in court. When the time comes, the LEGAL argument will be simple. An electronic document is just like a book.
Entrench the practice, and the courts will be hard pressed to stop it.
This means that as far as we are aware Samba is completely unaffected by the existance of these patents. I hate to be this guy, but they could have run this statement through spell check. This is like my second comment ever. Sigh.
Microsoft Client for Microsoft Networks
Microsoft Client for Netware Networks
Samba Team Client for What Microsoft Should Use
Click here or here.
What the hell are you moderators doing? You're going the wrong way! Mod this motherfucking parasite DOWN!
"In fact, the methods described in these patents are quite inappropriate for a Unix/POSIX"
It is most likeley that they are hinting these methods would certainly apply to a Windows platform, meaning a Win32 port of Samba would probably infringe upon them.
Just a drawn-out conjecture...
Your thoughts could be answered with a simple google search.
;)
http://main.mswinxp.net/~lpackham/smbclient/
Of course, it requires Cygwin. But, a drop in replacement for something that is proprietary to begin with and comes bundled with all windows version sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn't it.
I hope this is a horror scenario, but happenings similar this are already documented history:
;))
when and if Samba raises to compete as the file/printer sharing protocol to be installed on Microsoft products instead of Microsoft products, they will just start using client certificates or something to criple Samba access to other MSFT shares. I quess cross-compatibility is not bad enough for MSFT to take action, but dare you replace their perfect piece of software with some GPL crap and you are in trouble.
I do believe this is a scenario which could happen, maybe the court case changes something and the future is different, but until then they have strong artillery left to "defend the shares"
we know, chill out
I found the other news link for today on the Samba home page even more interesting. Could this be the motivation behind the strange licensing hijinx?
Microsoft are really looking to kick sand in someone's eye with their license. In fact there was no need for them to add the anti-GPL clause, because the other parts of the license do not allow sublicensing - so any number of licenses (including GPL) that require sublicensing simply won't work. The clause says as much - it has no real legal meaning itself. Good thing we have the MS marketing types on our side to keep those damn GPL commies at bay.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
...SMB will have to go away.
Micro$haft is the main company working on Windows networking protocols, and as has always been the case they don't seem to encourage standards or interoperability.
I'm thinking a better solution would be to use OpenAFS. It works on Windows and Linux just fine, and its not going to have interoperability problems because all of the stuff is open source.
I believe its only a short time, maybe a year or four, before M$ doesn't have anything to do with network interoperability software, unless they change their policy.
A saying comes to mind:
"The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Are there any free ones? Last time I looked they were all commercial.
Even if Linus were to do that (and even Richard Stallman says one can do such things) he'd have to get the agreement of all the other kernel developers, something I don't think can happen.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
The portions of the SMB tree that these pattents apply to have been abandoned by Microsoft because they have a flaw in their design.
Conjecture is that the flaw affected the naming of files, or possibly handling the case of file names, though with Unix/POSIX I am not entirely certain. For all I know the flaw or flaws affected how a directory was identified.
I tend to doubt that there is anything preventing a port of SAMBA to Win32, other than demand. As SMB is installed by default, the only reason that a user would look for an alternative is that there is a bug that prevents the user from accomplishing whatever task SMB/Samba is required to accomplish.
While I as a network maintenance person may feel the security threats built into the Win32 implemntations of SMB from Microsoft are sufficient reason to migrate to some other solution, I tend to suspect that most CIO and other upper management personell are not so inclined.
As I recall, there are alternative protocols available, including IPX over IP, as well as IBM's APPN that could provide some of the same services, however it would surprise me if any business switched to any of those at this point in their history either. If you wish to investigate, open your network control pannel, and "Add a protocol". I belive that you will find protocols from Banyon, IBM, Microsoft and Novell.
Then again, I could be wrong.
-Rusty
You never know...
We would like to also point out that these patents cover an obsolete section of the CIFS/SMB protocol that Microsoft themselves have abandoned in their own products long ago. Microsoft abandoned these "raw" protocol operations in CIFS because their basic design is fatally flawed. FUD. Plain FUD. The license as the statement says covers an onlder version. So it will not really affect the development , atleast thats why i inferred, correct me if I am wrong. M$ is most probably using FUD, to scare. they wouldnt dare to doanything which will stand against them in the court case so glaringly. The may be evil but they are not Fools
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
# i find this configuration runs the fasteste cure_locks,no_auth_nlm,anonuid=0,anongid=0)
/ *(rw,no_root_squash,insecure,no_subtree_check,ins
there's several cleuless people over here. this is waht you get with moderation, the democratic system gives clueless people a chance to do stupid things.
;^)
i too am tempted to react sometimes, but then who cares. and since you seem to have collected sufficient karma, your voice will be heard louder in the discussion anyway. let the little guy have his little revenge and mod you overrated
maybe a discussion box should be attached to a moderation. in this way, the moderated could anonymously discuss with the moderator about the contents of the post, and whether on not it;s insightful. think of the extra traffic it woudl generate... hehe
enough of that
For now, the PR is that an electronic document is somehow different than a book. But that is not being argued in court. When the time comes, the LEGAL argument will be simple. An electronic document is just like a book.
EULAs on documentation, even printed documentation, are extremely commonplace in many industries. See also trade secret law and non-disclosure agreement.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I tend to doubt that there is anything preventing a port of SAMBA to Win32, other than demand. the only reason that a user would look for an alternative is that there is a bug that prevents the user from accomplishing whatever task SMB/Samba is required to accomplish.
Just like Internet Explorer, people accept it as "default" and don't care. Hell I'm guilty! But Samba is cool, smb://servername/sharename really impressed the shit out of me when I typed it into the Gnome windowey-thingey and it actually worked. I would venture to say that any organization involved in the development of a computer program will need Samba someday. Microsoft won't crush it, it helps them interoperate. (Though I think that's called synthesis these days.)
--I don't pay for sex or my operating system
Trolls are like stray dogs. Feed them once and you'll never get rid of them.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
MS's main concern publicly was the subversion of their IP by inclusion in GPL software. This is a smoke screen for their real concern that they can't "repurpose" GPL software.
The reason what was in the licence is a smoke screen is because the GPL gives you no special rights when it comes to patents. If you include a MS patented idea in GPL code MS can still sue the crap out of you for doing it and everyone who uses it for using it.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
The page cannot be found
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Please try the following:
* If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.
* Open the apache.org home page, and then look for links to the information you want.
* Click the Back button to try another link.
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Internet Information Services
Technical Information (for support personnel)
* More information:
Microsoft Support
That is one damn big banner ad up there.
Isn't SAMBA used in Mac OS X and OS X Server for it's Windows file and network sharing? It works like a darling :)
Sooner or later that parites that matter are going to have to recognize the disconnected from reality arrogance of MS. And as the boy who cried wolf, MS has been BS'ing since Bill Yelled and coined the term "software piracy" in the mid 1970's.
I just hope the court system involved in the anti-trust case does before a decission is made by the judge.
Neat work, MS.
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. You can't choose just two out of the three, they come co-mingled.
get rid of it.
It is beyond me why people complain about ads when they are so simple to get rid of...
>I'm sorry, LUNIX doesn't exist. Maybe you were thinking of an OS that sounds similar, such as FreeBSD.
Does too. Exist, that is, not suck.
Click here if you just like to click on shit.
Very good point. Changing the license might push people to stay with their old versions of MS Office. This is not what Microsoft wants.
Sure they can piss and moan about stuff like this and maybe they'll take it all the way through court. Win or lose it doesn't matter really...
Think of government and educational facilities that have just begun to adopt linux and are loving it. Many of them RELY on samba.
I mean, geez, my company just put in a network to replace Novell with SuSE 7.3 throughout an entire school district. 90% of the usage is file and printer sharing.
So if Microsoft is going to screw them, I'd be very surprised to see them even buy any more MS clients. Microsoft will basically force them to switch to linux on the desktop which is something they're already experimenting with.
You'd be surprised how much easier it is to switch to linux on the desktop when your entire organization switches at the same time. (and budget cuts don't leave any room to purchase new MS licensed software.)
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
- MS/RPC on top of
- DCE/RPC and
- Remote Access Protocol (RAP) over
- Named Pipes on top of
- Transactions on top of
- Server Message Block (SMB) on top of
- NetBIOS
If you do an RPC call it goes through all of that (minus RAP which is quite dead post NT). A redesign would be trivial to implement by comparison because you could reduce all of that crap to one uniform API.Ok, I know I'm not supposed to feed the troll. But here goes:
If Linus *could* do that, that is licence for example 2.4.21 under a non-GPL license, anyone is free to take for example 2.4.20 and continue development with GPL. Linus could make his own, proprietary implementation, but 2.4.20 and it's GPL successors would still be GPL, and Linus' proprietary kernel would soon be irrelevant. I don't think the kernel is as dependent upon Linus as it once was, there's plenty of people who knows as much about each specific part of the kernel as Linus does.
This is *exactly* one of the benefits of open source, and an argument the proprietary/closed source software business had better NOT try to press, because the problem is much worse with closed source software. What if MS decided that they didn't want to develop Microsoft SQL server OR provide security fixes anymore? What if they decided that they for example didn't like a specific business, and decided to alter the license so that that business was no longer allowed to use MS SQL server?
One question I've got about patents (and I understand that they don't apply in the case anyway) is:
Isn't Samba Australian? As such wouldn't the patents be invalid here?
You better tell Apple who is developing an dessktop OS based on BSD that would take the UNIX throne! Oh no! What shall we do! Mac users, skip platform, cause BSD is dying! LOL, they are not.
> work of it, and you must therefore obey the
> license you "obtained" the document under.
So I should consider the license MS uses for this document as a viral license in the Gates/Ballmer sense of terms.
MS is using viral licenses to threaten open source developers with law suits. Nice.
...of a very smart moderator. when one puts [OT] in the subject line, it automatically pushes the offtopic button :-]
very funny indeed (burn karma burn...)
Firstly MS RPC is not "on top of" DCE RPC. It is an implementation of DCE RPC. Secondly if you make an RPC call, it can go over a variety of transports -- one of the great things about DCE RPC. Most windows boxes from NT4.0 onwards are configured to use IP by default.
Some more errors:
- RAP is not a layer in the stack for most of what you describe, only for the actual RAP functions, such as NetShareEnum. Most operations (such as open/read/lock) don't use it at all.
- Named Pipes are not "on top of" transactions. Transactions are an option for Named Pipes.
- Named pipes aren't on top of SMB. They are one of the things you can open using SMB, i.e. a type of file in a special part of the filesystem. The analogy is with character or block fifos in unix.
I might as well say:If you reduced it all down to copper wires imagine how efficient it could be! All you'd need is different voltages! Just code your application to read directly from an ADC!
NO ID: BEING FREE MEANS NOT HAVING TO PROVE IT
Turn it around. Implement SAMBA in windows.
My FTP-client is integrated in windows, so why don't they make a SAMBA-plugin for windows.
Don't bow for windows and accept everything they invent.
This way you can get maximum compatibility between M$ and Linux without nasty M$ licences.
Privacy is terrorism.
I believe that banning Microsoft selling software with anti-GPL licences would make part of a good settlement in the anti-trust case.
It probably wouldn't help victims of Microsofts past conduct but it would help potential victims of its future conduct.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Comment removed based on user account deletion
this isn't a troll.. more of an information post, but you can type:
\\servername\sharename
into IE with the same results.
I think it's called a UNC name.
S
Umm, Thanks. . . your really cleared that up. you stupid jackass.
For people interested in a more accurate and complete description of the CIFS/SMB protocol the Samba Team recommends the recently released SNIA CIFS document, which has been developed through a process of industry collaboration.
.SHG (Segmented Hyper Graphic, basically a big name for a graphic with link areas).
Years ago, I wrote a number of articles and then a book of Microsoft's undocumented file formats. In one case, there was a graphic file format called the
Anyway, Microsoft had publicly "released" the file format, but it was almost entirely wrong. The funny thing is that not long after my article on the real format appeared, Microsoft actually approached me to document the format for them. Ha ha ha. I guess whoever developped it left them high and dry.
I never did it because we disagreed on two key points. One: I wanted some payment upfront because they were notorious for taking their time paying people, and two: I wanted an agreement in writing that it would be released publicly. They didn't agree to either. Oh well, I released the documentation publicly.
Microsoft's position on GPL and LGPL licensing is even less sustainable after Microsoft's announcement that the next release of its Services For Unix (SFU) tool kit will be including Interix, which includes a copy of the GPL licensed GNU GCC compiler toolset.
Microsoft's new trend of denying access to the GPL and LGPL license has the the potential for more damage to Microsoft customers than just the ability to use SAMBA servers.
A new project The Open CD project, has the mission statement
To compile and distribute A CD-ROM containing a selection of high quality open source software for use on proprietary operating systems.
How viable will Microsoft's OSs be as host platform for theOpenCD,if Microsoft continue to restrict access to any GPL or LGPL product that provides any competition to Microsoft's own products?
Microsoft is effectively denying its users of Microsoft OSs access to competing products, which as I pointed out in the ask.slashdot forum, puts Microsoft in serous problems with the Antitrust laws.
I attended the first CIFS conference held up in Redmond back in 1996 or 1997 when I was working for Apple. One of the SAMBA team members also participated, I think it was Andrew Tridgell. The MS people were actually very respectful to Andrew. One of the funny things about SMB/CIFS was that there was NO documentation on the protocol. All MS had was three different codebases (Windows for Workgroups, Win '95 and Win NT) implementing the damn thing in slightly or sometimes majorly different ways. They stood up in front of us and admitted it. As a result, there were several times when Andrew was the only person in the room who knew the answer to a particular question. Overall, though, their basic attitude was "We're Microsoft - you have to put up with our bogus crap"
There were also definitely portions of SMB that they wanted to keep secret, most notably the manner in which authentication was handled. When heckled from the floor about that, their response was "If we opened the whole protocol suite to you there would be no need for a NT server box in your network." !!!!
I was able to view the whole conference as kind of an amusing episode since none of the problems really affected me directly. However, the majority of the conference attendees were poor schmoes who had started developing something that fit into the MS networking scheme and their companies and jobs were dependent on the MS stuff. They had a definite love/hate attitude towards Microsoft.
Overall, my feeling at the time was that MS encouraged the SAMBA team. If you check the SAMBA web site, you'll see a picture of a number of the SAMBA team at the '98 CIFS conference which I'm sure was also MS sponsored. So, I don't think MS is actively discouraging SAMBA. (Interestingly, who's another key player with CIFS? Network Appliance)
Can we sick the BSA on M$ to audit their code for GPL infractions?
I don't want to seem like a thankless moron to the guys developing SAMBA, but they should just quit SAMBA. .NET, screw Office, screw IE, screw Trustworthy Computing, screw all of that shit.
I know it's been a lot of work to make other platforms "interoperate" with Windows, especially without any kind of support from MS.
But let's screw it. Screw SMB, screw Windows, screw
It plain sucks. Let's evolve (let the chips fall where they may - anyone?). Let's do something else. Why do other operating systems (software, etc?) have to keep up with Windows? We are stifling innovation ourselves!!!
Let's just screw MS, and follow standards ourselves. If MS does not like it, it can go fuck itself for all I care. We have more power than we think (hey, the CDBTPA was turned down by geeks like us!), so let's use it.
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
So they are trying to take credit for doing this "open" standard.
Great now were doing pc like things on linux - what stunning innovation.
"never met a Microsoft zealot"
What if MS decided that they didn't want to develop Microsoft SQL server OR provide security fixes anymore?
They have basically done just that with the Jet databases engine (used in Access). There are known bugs in the 4.0 version which will never get fixed because MS has decided to stop development on the platform, thereby forcing people to migrate to some variant of SQL Server (or MSDE). This has caused no end of headaches for those who needed and used the Jet architecture as a simple file database for a small single/(or few) user application.
http://www.JournalOfTheRandom.com
f*ck you Microsoft
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
I thought Tux held all the copyrights to the Linux kernel?
sic transit gloria mundi
I mean it is not secure, complex to parameter etc ...
...)
:o)
... any Java2 OS is ready to be a share server :o)
Better use the WebDAV stuff for instance using the Apache Slide project !
The interresting thing is that Win2K an WinXP both support WebDAV natively (cf. Web Folders !)
Ok, webDav introduce some kind of an overhead, but it has some great advantages : no special right on the machine is required to setup one (no network add no nebeui crap, etc
An other quite interresting stuff is Apache Tomcat that is WebDAV ready, for instance when working around java stuff on your tux box you mostily like to have a tomcat engine for some kind of purposes, but you want from a win box to share files. Insteat of doing complex and heavy (system impacting) stuffs, just go in webapps/webdav and put your files,
then go to your win box, open a webfolder to the URL and voila
By default http://server/webdav is read-only but you might want it to be read-write, so only go to webapps/webdav/WEB-INF/web.xml and un comment the read-write section, restart and voila you've got a fully complient webdav share !
And of course this works as well with OSX, BSD, HP-UX,
On the client side, of you are not WinXX, to get a first step client, you may use DAVExplorer http://www.ics.uci.edu/~webdav/
(no webstart link at this time, just a manual setup)
Anyways, it is not panacea but has save me lots of time from madness when arriving in a foe network where WINS or netbeui stuffs were headaches.
Have fun !
4R34. ( . )( )
If Linus *could* do that, that is licence for example 2.4.21 under a non-GPL license, anyone is free to take for example 2.4.20 and continue development with GPL.
Moreover, I am not entirely sure Linus could legally do that. He would have to ask permission from every kernel developer that still has some line of code in the wanna-be-non-gpl kernel... or reimplement every line of code that is not his own. Linus did not write all the code in there. Just a hell of a lot of it.;))
The logic runs thus: Linux/Unix/Mac users would like to keep their machines and talk to other boxes on the network. Hence, if someone does have a windows box that is being fileshared, doesn't this make the situation better for M$ because people can actually connect to the box?
Because otherwise it'll be a pain to network with M$ stuff and people simply won't bother does it.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
Actually it is a "stunning innovation". It's rather akin to humans being able to communicate with something like a starfish.
If VISTA is the answer, you didn't understand the question
I know, I was just being sarcastic about "de facto" programs (by virtue of being installed with the OS) normal people use in windows such as IE.
The words I used were "samba win32 port".
Back in its day, NCP over IPX was a fine filesharing protocol. What are the pros and cons about making an open-source NCP-over-tcp/ip Novell workalike... beside having to write it from scratch or use MARS-NWE as a starting point?
when i write a something like ICQ or the windows file sharing, what kind of right can i have? do i have the right to own the protocol in addition to the software?
I stand corrected on the book issue. I heard the initial report about the injunction on it in an NPR report, and I see that as of May of last year the injunction against publication has been lifted by the courts, and the pervious rulings vacated as of October. It's such a shame that the media doesn't subsidize my laziness in not putting forth the effort to read up on things myself by publishing the good news follow up articles to bad news (grin)
And I have never met RMS, though I have read many of his writings and have heard him speak on several occasions. I don't agree with all of his principles, but from what I've seen he does seems to be fairly consistent in living by his stated principles. I have seen nothing to support your suspicion that he is opposed to the concept [of] money (which would be a ridiculous thing to be opposed to as it is merely an abstract of goods and services used to facilitate trade above a primitive barter system.) On what do you base this suspicion of yours?
As for his not understanding the working of an economy... he obviously does understand at least certain types of economies given the success that free software has had thus far. I think he may prefer other economies to the capitalist economy that is prevalent in the US, but that does not necessarily indicate a lack of understanding, but rather a preference. Unless you can back up your assertion of his ignorance....
I understand the concern on MS's part about the risk of some sub-contractor incorporating GPL'ed code into their products, but this appears to me to be a separate issue from GPL'ed software implementing MS protocols. Like the difference between putting a peg in a hole versus putting a hole in a peg.
I think it's high time some people get together and start to think about a network filesystem that addresses all the issues.
I think it's called "Plan 9"Put identity in the browser.
MS just wants to force Samba into a BSD-style license so they can replace their own crappy code with Samba's.
The fact he is a hippie who lives in his office and does not take baths or showers.
Now in ordinary cases that might just be ad-hominem, but the thing about RMS is that he has no social interface whatsoever.
The free software thing originally began as he got upset that many people in the AI lab left to go work at symbolics. Now Genera is an introspective O/S and you can get the whole code tree from the code, there never was a 'closed source' issue, it was not about the source code it was about the copyright.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
I recently attended a Holocaust memorial service with a Jewish friend of mine. To my surpise, the memorial service was not about the six million Jewish people killed during the Holocaust. This was mentioned in passing, but it was almost as if they were no longer bothered by it. Rather, they were mourning the seizure of tons of Jewish gold and diamonds by the Nazis. In the synagogue, there were various photographs of lost Jewish artwork and riches displayed. I noticed that many old women were weeping about the lost goods. It was a very somber and moving event, although I'm not sure it was worth the $9.95 they charged at the door.
What rights can Microsoft claim to a protocol that was originally developed by IBM? Does "embrace and extend" really translate to "Ok, we add a few functions to LanManager, then we sue anybody else that tries to use the protocol?" I think Microsoft's only option here is intimidation; an actual lawsuit would be laughed out of court. The best M$ could do is force the Samba team to change a few lines of code...
Why not create a new, better protocol for file sharing from the scratch?
I'm not a Samba developer (!), but I think that if people had written Windows driver/Extensions for Explorer or whatever to access a new Samba protocol would have been easier and take less time than reverse engineering CIFS (and it's troubles)... that's probably boring...
...
>Which building number does not exist on the Microsoft campus?
Building 7
I haven't worked for Microsoft for over ten years, but as I recall, there's quite a story behind that one. I was there as part of a co-op education program while buildings 8, 9, and 10 were being built.
First, a little background: all of buildings 1 through 6 are X-shaped, four arms spreading from a central core, with buildings 8 to 10 being in the shape of two X's attached by one arm, forming a line with two bars through it, similar to a double-dagger mark. Building shape is probably to maximize the number of window offices. Building layout is roughly:
+-++-+
+-+
XX
*X X
XX
With the X's being numbered 1-6 from right to left above, and the +-+ figures being 8-10 from right to left. Note the *, the obvious space where building 7 would have been.
As I was told, the main problem was in dealing with the fire regulations. Microsoft is right against the border between Bellevue and Redmond, and therefore near the edge of the support district for the local fire department. Zoning laws prevent construction of large buildings if fire trucks can't reach them within a certain set time. Unfortunately, the long winding road from what was then the main entrance near building 1 around to building 7 would have taken too long to drive down for the fire trucks, putting it just outside of the allowed area.
So, Microsoft planned on building a second entrance on the other side of the 'campus'. Even had the initial area for the 'driveway' cleared. Problem was, that back entrance would have opened onto Bellevue-Redmond Road, (aka Bell-Red) which formed the boundary line between the two cities. With typical city bureaucracy, both cities considered it the other city's job to make sure the road is maintained. In other words, it's a mess. Worse, because it's a mess (and because of the self-same city bureaucracy), fire trucks can't go down it at full emergency speed. So adding the new entrance there wouldn't have helped; they still couldn't get the zoning for Building 7.
Instead, they went around to the other side and built buildings 8-10 (as well as 11-12, which were smaller, special purpose buildings and not office blocks), putting in the new main entrance over nearer building 9. By that point, the land where building 7 was supposed to be was being used for parking anyway, and enough new space was present that it was seen as unneeded. So building 7 was never built.
Note, there may be some errors or misinterpretations in this: it was over twelve years ago now. If anybody has a better idea, feel free to correct me.
-- Bryan Feir
Perhaps I should be more clear as to why I say that open source leads to interoperability in this case.
1) Everyone who wants to develop a client for this system works with the developers themselves; its all part of one project. That means they test the interoperability between each system. This is possible because no one cares about profit. If people did care about profit, then there would be different entities working on each system (unless one had enough for all systems, which is seldom the case).
2) Age leads to maturity for Open Source products (because of the many eyes system), and this is an old enough product to be mature, and therefore not particularly buggy.
3) The goal of any open source developer is that their product becomes popular. Breaking standards can take away that popularity as long as the product does not have market dominance. The developers therefore have a vested interest in ensuring that the product is interoperable.
Why did I give this example rather than NFS? Because there is a Windows DLL which will let you mount AFS shares automatically on any version of Windows. This means that there is no real reason to use the Windows protocol (other than laziness, which I'll admit is a problem).
Perhaps this clears up the fact that I understand what I'm talking about and that open source sometimes means better interoperability.
And as far as understanding economics, I find that perhaps that claim is based upon some lack of such understanding. A company is leveraging its dominant market position to become a standards leader to drive out competition and thereby increase demand for their products. This is certainly shafting consumers, making the name "Micro$haft" quite apropoe. Perhaps you didn't think of OSS as a part of the economic system. It is, though its effects aren't quite the same.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
FYI (like anyone cares) the above message is a useless karma sucking banter. Way to go benhaha. You got your 5 karma points I guess.
MS already had their shot at such a strategy. Substantially before WINE, there was WABI, a product developed by Praxsys Corp (later bought by and popularized by Sun Microsystems) that also permitted Win16 and Win32 binaries to run on UN*X workstations.
I worked on WABI at both Praxsys and at Sun as both a developer and a project manager.
WABI actually required the use of MS-WIN binaries to operate properly. MS never prohibited that use. Their only response was to rev their software faster to prevent Sun from keeping up. (A strategy that worked better than we liked to admit, it can now be said.)