Slashdot Mirror


Microsoft Working For Samba Interoperability

JP writes "Andrew Bartlett of Samba fame has written a document describing their recent collaboration with Microsoft's Active Directory team. In brief, it would seem that the sky is falling, as Microsoft's engineers seem to be really committed to making Samba fully interoperable with AD. They have organized interoperability fests and have knowledgeable engineers answering technical questions without legal or marketing drones getting in the way. However according to Andrew the Samba AD team is currently very short on manpower, so if you have network experience, now is the time to get coding."

221 comments

  1. What does this mean? by GuloGulo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "In brief, it would seem that the sky is falling, as Microsoft's engineers seem to be really committed to making Samba fully interoperable with AD"

    The bolded part is a euphemism for "disaster in progress".

    Forgive my naivety, but isn't this a good thing (as much as MS collaboration can be)? Why is this a "sky is falling" situation?

    --
    "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
    1. Re:What does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Personally, I could use a bit of sky falling. There is no reason it should be considered a bad thing, well not unless you are one of them conservatives.

    2. Re:What does this mean? by postbigbang · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Snowballs are making it through hell, is what I believe was implied. Pigs are flying.

      AD must not be the holy grail anymore, but I'm not complaining. Openness to the FOSS community isn't a Microsoft trait, but as long as they have this deal with Novell/SUSE that's making them a mint, why not try and make it work? After all, they can look inside SAMBA with no obstacles to learn about their own code.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    3. Re:What does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is not a new thing. They have been working with samba for a couple of years at least.

      http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/search.aspx?q=samba&p=1

      They even try to think about how it will work with OLDER already released versions that are in firmware that will never be updated again.

    4. Re:What does this mean? by Slash.Poop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The sky is falling.....

      .....simply descibes the level of cynicism and bias that slashDot and a vast majority of it posters have toward anything Microsoft. They don't believe that Microsoft does or creates anything good. So when Microsoft does do just that, it must mean that the sky is falling.

    5. Re:What does this mean? by partenon · · Score: 1

      In which perspective? From Microsoft's POV, the "sky is falling", because they now have to provide information to other companies/projects as part of their EU antitrust lawsuits. And this situation (provide competitors with documentation) is tragic to them :-)

      --
      ilex paraguariensis for all
    6. Re:What does this mean? by partenon · · Score: 3, Informative

      Right, and they are doing that because they are good, right? I know that nobody RTFA, but here is an excerpt, just for you :-)

      In September 2007 Microsoft lost it's appeal of the 2004 anti-trust
      Decision by the European Commission. As as result, Microsoft was
      required to make protocol documentation available to competitors.

      --
      ilex paraguariensis for all
    7. Re:What does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "In which perspective? From Microsoft's POV, the "sky is falling", because they now have to provide information to other companies/projects as part of their EU antitrust lawsuits."

      That has nothing to do with this, you're a fucking idiot.

    8. Re:What does this mean? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Right, and they are doing that because they are good, right? I know that nobody RTFA, but here is an excerpt, just for you :-)

      In September 2007 Microsoft lost it's appeal of the 2004 anti-trust
      Decision by the European Commission. As as result, Microsoft was
      required to make protocol documentation available to competitors.

      MS has a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, bankers, and every other stakeholder. For them not to defend their IP would open them up to lawsuits from their stakeholders. And for that matter, giving away their IP as others have suggested would also create the same outcome.

      You see, business decisions are not black and white; good or evil; or your typical adolescent binary reasoning that prevails here on Slashdot. If some company that I invested my retirement savings into decided one day to give away their IP to be "good" and cave to the F/OSS community with no business plan on how to compensate for the loss of revenues, I would sue the management for gross malfeasance. Now, to head off the folks who would say that you can make up the revenues with services and support, I would like to point out that service and support companies are a dime a dozen, actually, that business plan has become a commodity worth as much as becoming a landscaper or a house cleaner - which I get a business card per day on average from folks who are in that business.

    9. Re:What does this mean? by partenon · · Score: 4, Informative

      For them not to defend their IP would open them up to lawsuits from their stakeholders. And for that matter, giving away their IP as others have suggested would also create the same outcome.

      The thing is: they are not giving away their IP. Their products are *not* being opened. Only the protocols their products uses needs to be documented. And let me show you another excerpt of TFA, as it seems you didn't read as well:

      The EU mandated a set of minimum terms (now known as the WSPP) that the Samba Team (and others) would be able to access the documentation
      under. By early 2008 the Free Software community gained access to this documentation under NDA, and by May 2008 Microsoft made all their protocol documentation public.

      That means: their trade-secrets are still protected. They are forced to change only their monopolistics acts.

      --
      ilex paraguariensis for all
    10. Re:What does this mean? by minus9 · · Score: 1

      The sky is falling.....

      .....simply describes the years of real world experience that slashDot and a vast majority of it posters have toward anything Microsoft. They have observed that Microsoft rarely does or creates anything good. So when Microsoft does do just that, it must mean that the sky is falling.

  2. WTF?! by cosmocain · · Score: 4, Funny

    There's no car analogy to describe my deranged stare.

    1. Re:WTF?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Not even the Multipla?

    2. Re:WTF?! by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Me too. Where is BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re:WTF?! by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      Me too. Where is BadAnalogyGuy when you need him?

      Sitting in his garage, on the floor, slack jawed in wonder.

      His attempt to put the engine from a Caterpillar D9 into his Miata were ... somehow successful.

      (Well, you did ask for a bad analogy, didn't you?)

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    4. Re:WTF?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's as if the armored car that you've been chasing for miles suddenly pulls over and the guards start passing out the money.

    5. Re:WTF?! by ThePhilips · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You seem to not read carefully the most important part: "Microsoft's engineers seem to be really committed to making Samba fully interoperable with AD"

      M$ engineers are normal folks like you and me. Well, probably not me. The all cr*p breaks loose when M$ management gets involved and start pushing its political agendas.

      If cooperation between AD and Samba folks would be successful, rest assured some M$ managers would try to stick themselves into the project to get a free share of credit for the success.

      --
      All hope abandon ye who enter here.
    6. Re:WTF?! by Toll_Free · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Due to NDA's, MS Engineers are probably not being helpful without management.

      Whether or not management CONTINUES to allow them to be helpful, remains to be seen.

      You DID bring up a good point, though.

      --Toll_Free

    7. Re:WTF?! by genner · · Score: 1

      It's as if the armored car that you've been chasing for miles suddenly pulls over and the guards start passing out the money.

      Yeah a car analogy!

    8. Re:WTF?! by partenon · · Score: 1

      Yes, they are normal folks. But they have to do what their company tells them to do. If your employer forbids you to provide documentation to competitors, would you do that?

      Microsoft is doing that only because they *have* to do that. That's the reason why the Microsoft engineers are allowed to be so nice with Samba team.

      --
      ilex paraguariensis for all
    9. Re:WTF?! by sorak · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's no car analogy to describe my deranged stare.

      What if you saw a car humping a camel while Lindsay Lohan mud-wrestled Oprah Winfrey in the back seat? Would that be a good car analogy for this occurance?

    10. Re:WTF?! by drachenstern · · Score: 1

      Ok, you have succesfully forced me into a state of having a deranged stare... Thanks.

      Oh, and your analogy, while quite the analogy, doesn't seem to help in this situation, unfortunately...

      Now to go burn my eyes out with liquid lye, thanks.

      --
      2^3 * 31 * 647
    11. Re:WTF?! by eeek77 · · Score: 1

      C'mon. Think harder.

      Hybrid SUV, 3-wheeled cars. Something...

    12. Re:WTF?! by kesuki · · Score: 1

      ah but there is a good analogy. this is like Ford chugging along making model Ts suddenly realizing that this upstart, General motors is making a move on your core business making cars and you design the model A. but after 20 years you realize that the model A just isn't cutting it, and you hire a real design team and start offering cars in colors other than black, because 'design' of 'models' of cars is 'popular' just as network file transfer interoperability is becoming 'popular' for people who say use a more secure linux computer along with say a less secure gaming rig windows PC.

      only in this case, the worry of losing business to companies that start considering linux + xp as a solution instead of windows server 2009 + vista. instead of worrying that linux will take your place, you decide to play nice, in making cross platform solutions easier, so that you can FUD people into believing that 'linux desktops will be too hard for your people to learn, vista can be set up by network support to look just like nt if needed, while still having all the security featerus and if you have a few linux servers they'll play nice with new vista, so you should upgrade to vista.

      oh wait, that's a good analogy. sorry my bad.

    13. Re:WTF?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "What if you saw a car humping a camel while Lindsay Lohan mud-wrestled Oprah Winfrey in the back seat? Would that be a good car analogy for this occurance?"

      Only if Oprah's clit looks like a giant pulsating sweet potato.

    14. Re:WTF?! by Sam+Ramji · · Score: 1

      It may be appropriate to reassess what you consider "Microsoft management". I am Microsoft management, and I established the current strategy and approach for engaging with Samba based on discussions with Jeremy Allison, Andrew Tridgell, and team in early 2007. That's why we've been able to get the engineers connected directly.

      For more context you can review here: If you're surprised, you're not paying attention.

      Sam Ramji
      Sr. Director, Platform Strategy
      Microsoft Corporation

    15. Re:WTF?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That sounds like part of an introduction for The Stig on Top Gear. :-)

  3. about time.. by Markspark · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and this will probably be of some benefit to Microsoft, since playing well with other operating systems must always be an advantage.

    --
    i find your lack of faith in science disturbing!
    1. Re:about time.. by PatLam · · Score: 0

      Especially when your products are loosing ground.

    2. Re:about time.. by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Definitely about time. I'd much rather have a viable/free exchange server to remove the last vestiges of Windows Server infestations, but a bulletproof samba certainly helps the cause too.

      A few windows clients, I can live with....

      Cheers,

    3. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exchange is not Active Directory, and I think it is completely unrelated to Samba in every respect.

    4. Re:about time.. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Funny

      since playing well with other operating systems must always be an advantage.

      Heh, I don't know about always. I don't recall having many advantages when networking win2k and win98 machines back in the day.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    5. Re:about time.. by internerdj · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why not? I don't think a for-profit company is ever going to get far from compete mode. I wouldn't expect Apple or Palm or Redhat for that matter to play well with others if it wasn't an advantage either.

    6. Re:about time.. by bsane · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or they'll just wait until their ideas are fully integrated with samba, and then threaten anyone who uses it with patent lawsuits...

      I have a hard time seeing any other outcome.

    7. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think that poster's intent was that they are the same. I think the point is that this is another building block along with 100% compatible samba for people to pitch the removal of windows servers to their respective PHBs. Personally, I look forward to this day. It is not so much that I dislike Microsoft, but I am tired of the upgrade merry-go-round and licensing gotchas.

    8. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      In our company we're dropping as much windows stuff as possible because of the failure to integrate and vendor lockin. If windows worked better as a client on an open network we might actually let a few people use it... Windows really never belonged on servers anyway, there's so much more you can do with samba than you could never do with a windows file server (like install without a gui) and no virii/worms/etc. Really they'll just have to learn to play well with others if they want to retain some market share on our network... and I'm guessing our network is at least like a few others now, and like several others will be.

    9. Re:about time.. by somersault · · Score: 3, Funny

      If Microsoft products are loosing ground, they have a great future in the mining and dredging industries! Imagine being able to dig things up without all that expensive heavy machinery!

      --
      which is totally what she said
    10. Re:about time.. by TomorrowPlusX · · Score: 5, Funny

      They haven't done this to Mono yet, as far as I know. They're even helping Mono with Moonlight.

      I'm not a Microsoft fan, but you know, it's *possible* they're not as evil as they used to be.

      --

      lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
    11. Re:about time.. by gbjbaanb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I suppose its all about realisation that Linux is making it into corporate environments, and Microsoft now has to do something to keep themselves there.

      MS are saying that if you really, really must have a Linux server in your IT shop, they'd better make it so it can connect to the one true corporate user account register, before the people who put the Linux server in decide to try a different LDAP server, maybe even one supplied by Novell.

      It makes sense for MS to start doing this, in this way they can keep their dominance in the corporate IT structure, by letting the lowly Linux boxes play in the same playground. The important thing to understand here is that even MS has realised linux is making it big in businesses, that kinda give Linux the seal of approval from MS, not even the most pro-MS, anti-OSS PHB can say its not a valid OS anymore.

      Next: an Outlook client... MS won't mind that as it allows them to keep their Exchange systems ... until someone builds an Exchange replacement to go with it, and then watch MS share price tumble.

    12. Re:about time.. by bfizzle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Does it not seem odd to you that the only competitor for Windows file sharing recommended here is a open source clone of the same technology they are trying to replace?

      There is a reason why Windows servers are so popular and it is no one makes directory services, file sharing, group policy, and email/calendaring as easy as Microsoft. Microsoft has been so successful at creating these services and making them simple to administer that most open source projects try to emulate/replicate/duplicate what already has been done.

      So stay up on your soap box saying how much better the open source version is...

    13. Re:about time.. by ryanvm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not only have they not tried to sink Mono with patent lawsuits. I can't think of ANYONE they've EVER attacked with patents.

      I'm tired of hearing this lame FUD scenario from the Slashdot crowd every time MS dabbles in open source.

    14. Re:about time.. by Daimanta · · Score: 1

      There are 3 possible mods for this post:

      1) +1 Funny
      2) -1 Flamebair
      3) -1 Microsoft employee

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    15. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Camera/flash memory makers and the FAT32 file system.
      Not saying it's a big deal or even a trend, but it's not "never."

    16. Re:about time.. by SnarfQuest · · Score: 3, Funny

      Microsoft needs a working version of this code to "innovate" into their next version of Windows.

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    17. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, but they've threatened to. According to MS Linux infringes on upwards of two hundred patents, and MS has claimed to have considered bringing up patent lawsuits against those who use Linux. This way companies will stick with MS rather than risk being sued to death.

      In some ways it's worse to just threaten than actually going ahead with the lawsuit because once they've made it clear where the infringements are they can be dealt with (F/OSS being quite flexible and what not), but with their FUD they can hang it over the heads of any potential Linux users for years to come.

    18. Re:about time.. by sillyxone · · Score: 1

      from Microsoft a few days ago: "If every effort to license proves not to be fruitful, ultimately we have a responsibility to customers that have licenses and to our shareholders to ensure our intellectual property is respected" http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081018165715723

    19. Re:about time.. by PitaBred · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not that odd. The Windows networks exist, and that's what's really important. No one gives two shits about what you're running, only if you can't communicate with them. Samba exists as a clone and is recommended here because people need to interoperate. You can't run any other kind of sharing on Windows and have it work properly, so the only other option is to use the same kind of sharing that Windows DOES work with.

    20. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does it not seem odd to you that the only competitor for Windows file sharing recommended here is a open source clone of the same technology they are trying to replace?

      There is a reason why Windows servers are so popular and it is no one makes directory services, file sharing, group policy, and email/calendaring as easy as Microsoft. Microsoft has been so successful at creating these services and making them simple to administer that most open source projects try to emulate/replicate/duplicate what already has been done.

      So stay up on your soap box saying how much better the open source version is...

      Too bad Microsoft couldn't help you with your atrocious grammar. I had to read your one sentence paragraph 3 times to figure out what the heck you were trying to say. Next time, try one of these ; : , . to help your readers.

    21. Re:about time.. by PitaBred · · Score: 5, Informative

      They don't attack people with patents outright. They say "Hey, Novell... we've got patents covering shit you're doing. It'd be in your best interests to work with us on the terms we specify". Microsoft doesn't need the money from the lawsuits, they aren't looking at it as a revenue stream. They look at it as a pointy stick to get people to do what they want, and license the patents BEFORE the lawsuits happen.

    22. Re:about time.. by segedunum · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not only have they not tried to sink Mono with patent lawsuits. I can't think of ANYONE they've EVER attacked with patents.

      It hasn't stopped Ballmer and others at Microsoft talking about it incessantly, and it hasn't stopped them and won't stop them grabbing patents on fundamental .Net technology and telling everyone they need a patent grant. Most of Microsoft's patents thus far quite cleverly tell you that it applies to anything running within a CLR at the top, which means that they are not the general things everyone tells you they are when this is brought up. The only reason why the ECMA stuff is made available under RAND terms is because the ECMA requires it, but there is no guarantee that things will stay that way at all.

      That's the state of play. Once .Net has reached critical mass they have the luxury of killing off any compatibility through technological changes, telling everyone that they now need a license grant, and if push comes to shove, patents that apply to .Net technology and nothing else if it needs to be enforced. Microsoft does not want people using their technology unless money ends up flowing into their coffers, and Microsoft employees on more than one occasion have called this a give-get scenario, where you give now and get more later. I am aghast that people haven't grokked that yet.

      I'm tired of hearing this lame FUD scenario from the Slashdot crowd every time MS dabbles in open source.

      Heh. Regardless of what the Slashdot crowd says, I don't know if you've noticed but Microsoft has had a certain degree of scepticism, and at times, outright hostility to this whole open source thing from their own lips. Are you seriously trying to tell me that you haven't noticed that yet and are you seriously wondering why people are sceptical right back?

    23. Re:about time.. by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Next: an Outlook client...

      Evolution already does this, and quite well--it's been around for years (the first time I used it with my Exchange box was four or five years ago, and I had no issues with it.) Once upon a time, you had to pay for a piece of middleware to handle the MAPI connection, but that became part of the base package when Novell bought Ximian.

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    24. Re:about time.. by tearmeapart · · Score: 2, Informative

      Ummm... there are many network file systems out there that have worked fine for a long time. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System
      .

      I know it may be from the 1980's, but my NFS is working just fine between my Solaris/Linux/FreeBSD machines. And yes, I do have plans to migrate to ZFS.

    25. Re:about time.. by rickb928 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "There is a reason why Windows servers are so popular and it is no one makes directory services, file sharing, group policy, and email/calendaring as easy as Microsoft. Microsoft has been so successful at creating these services and making them simple to administer that most open source projects try to emulate/replicate/duplicate what already has been done"

      I disagree.

      Before even Novell had NDS working well there was StreeTalk. But NDS worked just fine, than, you very much.

      It was the client, being crippled by Microsoft, that hampered NetWare. Not NDS.

      The whole Microsoft v. Novell thing is a good case study in using interoperability to first build a market, then crush your competition, leaving you dominant and solitary. Perhaps you need to go back and read some of the court papers to more fully appreciate the effort Microsoft put into making Novell fail on Windows.

      And then there's the whole Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect things, but we digress. When Microsoft starts 'working' on interoperability, it is not irrational to suspect foul play. It's experience.

      ps- I rather liked GroupWise, which worked pretty well when Exchange was not. And I use Notes at work which, despite the complaints, works too well to ditch here. Not entirely fair, 'cause here we use so many Notes databases and apps that Exchange can't replace all of it. The IBMers are frantically converting everything into .NET and Web 2.0 so we can use Exchange, and coincidentally experience substantially enhanced downtime in our data apps. And they are succeeding well. We've even lost data. Woot! Believe me, I know, these guys don't need any help from Microsoft.

      grrr....

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    26. Re:about time.. by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      And whoever modded this post troll needs to read the linked article.

    27. Re:about time.. by howlinmonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As someone already mentioned, SAMBA came about because users wanted to play nice in the dominant environment. And MS didn't grow to dominance because their software was superior.

      Oddly enough, much of AD is built on OSS technologies -> LDAP and Kerberos.

      And MS is only simple to admin if you don't mind constantly searching for hacks, patches and updates for obscure problems. Often, you have to manually go to the nightmare that is the registry to solve problems. Those of us comfortable with a text editor don't need the square training wheels of the MS gui.

      So stay up on your soapbox saying how much better MS is...

    28. Re:about time.. by TomorrowPlusX · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm not an MS employee. In fact, I'm a graphic designer who prefers to work on OS X and writes Cocoa apps and 3d games in his spare time.

      Why I got modded funny is beyond me.

      --

      lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
    29. Re:about time.. by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1

      While the sentiment of what you said is true, do keep in mind that Evolution doesn't use MAPI to talk to Exchange. It uses a WebDAV API exposed by Outlook Web Access. Entourage (Microsoft's client for the Mac) uses the same API.

      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    30. Re:about time.. by myvirtualid · · Score: 1

      ryanvm (247662) wrote the Slashdot crowd

      Dude, you may a 6 digit UID, but it's still relatively low.

      Doesn't that make you part of the /. crowd?

      I'm tired of hearing of us spreading this lame FUD scenario

      There, fixed that for ya!

      --
      I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
    31. Re:about time.. by DMadCat · · Score: 1

      "The important thing to understand here is that even MS has realised linux is making it big in businesses, that kinda give Linux the seal of approval from MS, not even the most pro-MS, anti-OSS PHB can say its not a valid OS anymore."

      You obviously haven't met my PHB. ;)

      The scary part? I work on the Unix support team.

      The really really scary part? Our Windows team is exploring deploying Suse Enterprise because my PHB refuses to support it. He regards me as strange because I run Slackware rather than Windows on my laptop.

    32. Re:about time.. by EvilRyry · · Score: 1

      Not so. AD, CIFS and Exchange are very tightly related. Which explains how OpenChange got a mostly working Exchange server off the ground so quickly by using the Samba4 libraries.

    33. Re:about time.. by Daimanta · · Score: 1

      "Why I got modded funny is beyond me."

      Because of the outright hostility towards open-source and Linux.

      "Linux is a cancer" -Steve Ballmer

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Microsoft_antitrust_case

      And don't forget the MS-DOS vs. Dr. DOS debacle.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    34. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Linux is only simple to admin if you don't mind constantly searching for hacks, patches and updates for obscure problems. Often, you have to manually go to the nightmare that is the conf file to solve problems.

    35. Re:about time.. by EvilRyry · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Microsoft has complete and total control over both the clients and the servers for all the things you just mentioned which gives them just a tad of an advantage. They also have a monopoly on the desktop market. The only way to really join the game is to play by their rules. Thanks to Open Source software that interoperates with the Microsoft products, this barrier of entry is much lower allowing more companies to compete in a given market.

      You might be fine with a Windows file server and NTFS, unfortunately I manage large, high traffic storage volumes with a small budget. NTFS simply will not scale to my needs and I don't have the money to buy a SAN or NAS appliance (I've priced them, and demoed one and they are really, really expensive!). For me open source software provides an alternative solution that gives me the performance I need at a price my company can afford.

    36. Re:about time.. by quanticle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is a reason why Windows servers are so popular and it is no one makes directory services, file sharing, group policy, and email/calendaring as easy as Microsoft.

      Or perhaps its because no one makes directory services, file sharing, group policy, and email/calendaring as incompatible (with third party products) as Microsoft. Its not that Microsoft's products are any easier or more intuitive than the competition. Its that Microsoft's products work natively with Windows, and therefore allow Microsoft to leverage its monopoly in the desktop OS market into a monopoly in other spaces as well.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    37. Re:about time.. by quanticle · · Score: 1

      While Microsoft hasn't directly attacked anyone, they've certainly tried to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding the patent situation on Linux. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has claimed that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. If he wasn't trying to sow doubt amongst enterprises as to the long term viability of Linux, why would he do such a thing? Lets also not forget Microsoft's aid in arranging funding for SCO. So, while Microsoft hasn't gone after anyone directly for patent issues, they've certainly done so indirectly.

      --
      We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    38. Re:about time.. by ITJC68 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You won't earn many friends with that remark although completely true. Alot of projects are being modeled after something M$ already does. Just a free alternative. When OSS starts creating its own niche then it will really take off. Most people don't want to have to learn how to use a computer all over again once they have Windows. Us Technically proficient people can but there are not as many PC users like us as there are average users who could care less what the OS is as long as it works and does what they want. And for the majority that is still Windows.

    39. Re:about time.. by Allador · · Score: 1

      NFS is a relatively small feature subset of AD+SMB/CIFS+MSRPC, which is what Samba is replacing.

      It's not a reasonable comparison.

    40. Re:about time.. by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

      Are you kidding me? I'll take a conf file over regedit any day of the week and twice on Sundays!

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    41. Re:about time.. by EvilRyry · · Score: 1

      The OpenChange evolution plugin is expected to land in Gnome 2.26. This plugin uses MAPI.

      Right now it does use OWA as you mentioned which is hideously slow and unstable in my experiences.

    42. Re:about time.. by DrgnDancer · · Score: 1

      I'd say the reason has a lot to do with the fact that Microsoft dominates the desktop and designed their desktop OS to be incredibly difficult to integrate with non-MS server systems when it comes to file sharing and authentication. While it's technically possible to integrate Windows clients into an NFS based file sharing system or an LDAP based authentication system, in practice it's a pain in the ass. Plus once you get it working it's a client side config that has to be redone every time you install a new system or (if the shop is large enough to want/need it) create a new system image. With Samba, the work is done on the server and the clients all see things as if they were interacting with the auth/file sharing system that they were designed to work with.

      In a perfect world, people would ditch the desktop system that forces them to buy or imitate its own special servers and go with real inter-operable systems. In the real world no one wants to ditch MS on the Desktop so they buy AD servers (or try to imitate them with Samba). On the Personal Information Management front, the situation is similar, but the desktop client is Outlook. Again, you can make Outlook work with other stuff, but it's a pain unless that stuff acts like an Exchange server. So rather than replace Outlook people buy or try to imitate Exchange.

      In both cases the main argument seems to be that it's easier to pay whatever MS wants for server software rather than force a mass user migration to another desktop or PIM. If a sufficiently capable alternative to Microsoft server software were available (like a Samba tweaked with real help from MS), it would at least allow companies to configure their back ends however they want, even if they still feel trapped with Windows on the front end.

      That's where all of these lawsuits originally came from you see. It's not that Microsoft makes bad software (I actually happen to think that Exchange/Outlook is a pretty good system), it's that they use dominance in one field to force their way into others. Got a lot of Windows desktops? Well, you need an AD server to authenticate and serve files to them! While you're at it, our web server works way better with our browser... Ohh, and look, our SQL server is optimized for our webserver! Plus that SQL server and our Mail server more or less require those previously mentioned AD servers! So, unless you want all your employees to have learn a new desktop OS, you pretty much have buy ALL of our stuff. well.. you don't have to, but our NFS stack sucks (and requires separate installation), convincing our clients to auth against anything except AD practically requires reprogramming the OS, Outlook's IMAP functions seem to be subtly crippled...

      Truthfully things have gotten better since they realized that governments would call them on the most egregious problems. Outlook seems to have lost a lot of its subtle problems with open e-mail formats and there's a lot less IE only stuff in the web server. It's still a LOT easier to run an all MS shop than to integrate MS boxes into a heterogeneous network though, and not because MS stuff is particularly easy to configure.

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    43. Re:about time.. by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      He was obviously promoted into the position. Don't worry, soon he should be promoted into a head of marketing, its only a matter of time :-)

    44. Re:about time.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm trying to understand their sudden attitude change.

      Until now there was no real replacement. Only Samba3 which was a small subset of MS protocols (file sharing and partially client authentication). Now, the Samba team is finishing version 4 which emulates both AD server and client, and it is imminently going to be adopted by competition (especially software built around it like FreeIPA or OpenChange).

      So, to stop a lot of complaints about buggy interoperability with industry-grade commercial distros from _many_ important customers, they have to do something about making OSS stack working well with MS stack.

      Second reason is the EU legal process. They will have better chances of minimizing the final impact and avoid future disputes with governments (including maybe future US government) if they show that they "changed" and started collaborating with OSS competition. .Net is fairly open, but because they have to compete with Java by all means (same with Silverlight vs. Flash). In many other domains where they have a strong grip, MS IP is well guarded from outsiders (the obfuscated OOXML and most of the Office stuff, Direct3D API, or all of win32 secret sauce, for example).

    45. Re:about time.. by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Read this :

      http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html

      for details on patent issues. It's not as black as you paint it.

      Jeremy.

    46. Re:about time.. by dan_barrett · · Score: 1

      Yes, but at least you get sane error messages from Linux, or at least a string to search for with google, as opposed to "Windows encountered an unknown error", or the service just failing with no error message at all.

      I'm battling with sharepoint's search service right now, the latest error message was "User does not have permission to alter database 'sharepoint_search'.
      ALTER DATABASE statement failed."

      Which user? I have no fricken idea.

      Give me Linux any day.

    47. Re:about time.. by Yfrwlf · · Score: 1

      How about everyone copies everyone eventually, especially with software. Yeah there's a lot of obvious examples of places where Microsoft bought this company or Novell bought that one, and they integrated the company's software into their own stuff. Obviously their statement wasn't "completely true", rarely anything can be so that's always an easy point of argument, Microsoft has copied a lot of stuff they don't own, and other companies do it too.

      But, looking past all that, ultimately most "new ideas" were all around a very very long time ago and are now simply just put together in more complex ways to add a little more usability here or feature there. It's one argument among many against software patents. It's too bad the rule of "has to be non-obvious to someone in that field" rule has been completely disregarded by the patent office.

      OSS going in radically new neat directions surely will help, though of course other companies will "steal" the idea and claim "patent rights" on it and then turn around and try to sue the original developers no doubt. I believe though that even if OSS did only duplicate commercial software and do nothing else, obviously it being the cheaper solution means it will get a piece of the action. Why do you think MS has over one million software patents?

      --
      Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
    48. Re:about time.. by Yfrwlf · · Score: 1

      Sorry, by "Microsoft has copied a lot of stuff they don't own" I meant that they didn't make with the developers they have. But, lots of companies buy out other companies to get bigger, MS has just been really good at doing so...and kudos to their legal department for finding every way in the book (and not in the book) to be dicks.

      --
      Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
    49. Re:about time.. by mpe · · Score: 1

      Yes, but at least you get sane error messages from Linux, or at least a string to search for with google, as opposed to "Windows encountered an unknown error", or the service just failing with no error message at all.

      Sometimes Windows will give you a useful error message, something you can put into Google and get a useful response. Other times putting an error message into Google will return lots of hits for other people with the same problem

      I'm battling with sharepoint's search service right now, the latest error message was "User does not have permission to alter database 'sharepoint_search'. ALTER DATABASE statement failed."
      Which user? I have no fricken idea.


      A variation on the "Can't open file". To which my first response tends to be "Which one?"

    50. Re:about time.. by lamapper · · Score: 1

      ... Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has claimed that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. If he wasn't trying to sow doubt amongst enterprises as to the long term viability of Linux, why would he do such a thing? Lets also not forget Microsoft's aid in arranging funding for SCO. So, while Microsoft hasn't gone after anyone directly for patent issues, they've certainly done so indirectly.

      I have read through many of the documents, especially the EU Ct. of 1st Instance: Microsoft Abused its Dominant Position - Updated This link has the not only the conversation after the court decision but links to videos and a recording of the conversation (Sean Daly, Georg Greve of FSFE, Jeremy Allison and Volker Lendecke of Samba, and Carlo Piana, their lawyer of record in the case) so you can here it in their words. Thank you for posting the link!

      Microsoft's blue and green bubble defense is laughable and fortunately for all of us, at least the EU courts saw through it. It is telling that Microsoft's lawyer submitted 258 pages only about one hour before the case for review and that per Volker Lendecke, Microsoft deliberately muddied the waters with the term intellectual property in such a way that it was not clear whether they were talking about copyrights or patents or what. Very telling and sadly not surprising.

      To think of those companies that actually got scared and agreed to settle with Microsoft, per Georg Greve, to the tune of ($3.6 million for Sun, Novell, REal and CCIA who were all bought out of the case). And how about those companies that actually bought worthless coupons out of fear of being sued, from Novell. Talk about a waste of money and we are not talking thousands or millions, but billions. In the first six months, Novell sold coupons to such marquee clients as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, AIG Technologies, HSBC, Wal-Mart, Dell and Reed Elsevier have all acquired Novell Linux coupons from Microsoft."

      If I were they, I think I would want my money back.

      I find it interesting that Thomas Vinje, actually stated that "if you think about any of these markets, who were the innovators? Novell was the innovator. Novell created singlhandedly the workgroup server market. It was taken away from them by the monopoly." Real created streaming media, innovating and creating the streaming media market and they're gone now, at least fewer people use it these days. Netscape and browsers...of course there are many others.

      Yes excellent article thanks for posting! It will be interesting to see how many of the companies that have outstanding court cases with Microsoft might try to force them to an earlier resolution now...I for one will not hold my breath.

      --
      Is your Internet Throttled? Install DD-Wrt, OpenWRT or Tomato to learn the truth! Google: 1Gbps/1Gbps: 5 Communities
    51. Re:about time.. by rtechie · · Score: 1

      I disagree.

      Well, you're wrong. The OP was 100% exactly correct.

      Before even Novell had NDS working well there was StreeTalk. But NDS worked just fine, than, you very much.
      It was the client, being crippled by Microsoft, that hampered NetWare. Not NDS.

      So MS somehow prevented Novell from using the fine-grained permissions of the NT security model? And somehow forced them to use IPX? NDS gave you a single-sign-on and that's it.

      The whole Microsoft v. Novell thing is a good case study in using interoperability to first build a market, then crush your competition, leaving you dominant and solitary. Perhaps you need to go back and read some of the court papers to more fully appreciate the effort Microsoft put into making Novell fail on Windows.

      Bullshit whining. The court case revolves around Microsoft supposedly "stealing" the idea of a directory system from Novell, which is bullshit. Novell didn't invent directory systems and if you think they did, why aren't you bitching about LDAP violating Novell's IP?

      Between 1996 and 2000 Microsoft made a better product than NDS, Active Directory. Adoption of Active Directory was not instantaneous, nor was the abandonment of NDS. The reality is that Novell did nothing to improve their product against the competition of Active Directory and so customers moved on.

      I deal with a lot of companies, in particular Fortune 1000 companies, and every single one of them is using Active Directory, many are using it for all clients Windows, MacOS, and Linux. A few (3) are using Lotus Notes. As a group, they're not impressed with alternate solutions.

    52. Re:about time.. by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      First, as I pointed out, Microsoft crippled the Novell client over and over, even before directory services.

      Second, I enver thought of the NT security model as 'fine-grained'. But if tiiwere, there was this thing called ZenWorks for Windows - clever, let NDS manage the AD model for an NT/2000/XP machine. So good that if Microsoft told you that pixing the problem you were having meant removing Zen, you could, and it was undetectable. Let MS fix the issue, and then reapply Zen. Novell understood and leveraged the NT and AD models just fine, thank you.

      I also didn't say Novell invented directory services. I even referenced SteetTalk, the first PC-available dirctory services I'm aware of. But DEC did some work on DS before that, I think. I always thought LDAP was an independent development, like ADS. Of course, LDAP was not designed to break NDS, and NDS can and did use LDAP if you wanted to.

      Remember, the court case revoled around Microsoft both failing to accurately disclose the API to Windows and NT/ADS, and purposefully changing Windows to fail the Novell clients, back to v2 clients. Several times, Microsoft published specs that were false, and at least twice made changes intended to cause the Novell client to fail.

      And then there's the little thing about NT and 2000 just not working well at all in multiprotocol networking. But that's growing pains, and Microsoft might be excused for not working on making competitors' product function well, if at all. Call it competition, of course.

      Sorry, but you're pretty much in the tank. I suspect you just don't know any better.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    53. Re:about time.. by rtechie · · Score: 1

      First, as I pointed out, Microsoft crippled the Novell client over and over, even before directory services.

      How, magic? The NDS client worked just fine on NT4 when all it did was shim the login. Bugs started to be introduced in 2000 when Novell started trying to integrate with Active Directory. You can find dozens of apps that replace the login in Windows. Nobody else seemed to run into these problems.

      Second, I enver thought of the NT security model as 'fine-grained'.

      Relative to what? With NT4, you can set the permissions on individual files and processes for individual users. 2000 adds GPO. The Novell model was somewhat similar, but it only covered network shares. With NT4 and eventually AD you could do the whole operating system. And managing ACLs with command-line tools sucks to the point that it's basically impossible. This is the reason nobody used them in Netware (and the reason why nobody in Linux uses them now).

      So good that if Microsoft told you that pixing the problem you were having meant removing Zen, you could, and it was undetectable.

      I have no idea what this means.

      Several times, Microsoft published specs that were false, and at least twice made changes intended to cause the Novell client to fail.

      I can't find any details of this ruling, and it contradicts my own experience.

      And then there's the little thing about NT and 2000 just not working well at all in multiprotocol networking.

      Which protocols? Microsoft's support of IPX/SPX sucked almost as bad as Novell's support of TCP/IP, so I'll call 'em even. I'll agree that 2000 really doesn't like anything but TCP/IP.

      Sorry, but you're pretty much in the tank.

      Novell had a pretty good product in the Netware 3 and 4 days but they stood still while Microsoft, and eventually Linux, moved forward. Novell admits this themselves.

  4. Re:Bill Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As Admiral Ackbar would say, It's a trap!

  5. Open source labs by sammyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I could probably make some small contribution but have neither the time nor inclination to set up the dev and test environment.

    For projects of this magnitude a site that could be ssh'd to, 'check out' a dev environment slice would make it a whole lot more practical for folks to work on a small bug or enhancement.

    1. Re:Open source labs by nurb432 · · Score: 1

      Virtual machines. Instant dev environment.

      --
      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    2. Re:Open source labs by bozojoe · · Score: 1

      An excellent idea. I should hope that Microsoft could actually make that happen. So the question is: if your really committed, you better ask for that environment.

      --
      lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)
  6. Old Proverb by CaptScarlet22 · · Score: 1

    If you can't beat them, join them!!

    --
    It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
    1. Re:Old Proverb by AvitarX · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree.

      I bet this is about a semi-fold on their server platform, to maintain desktops.

      They can give-up AD servers, and push exchange and share point and Desktops/Office.

      the AD is the weakest (least important) part of there monopoly, especially in mid-sized businesses.

      If they provide the clients, and the messaging, and the document sharing, and even the remote desktops. The actual authentication is moot.

      --
      Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
  7. God dammit..., corrected "What does this mean?" by GuloGulo · · Score: 0, Redundant

    "In brief, it would seem that the sky is falling, as Microsoft's engineers seem to be really committed to making Samba fully interoperable with AD"

    The bolded part is a euphemism for "disaster in progress".

    Forgive my naivety, but isn't this a good thing (as much as MS collaboration can be)? Why is this a "sky is falling" situation?

    --
    "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
    1. Re:God dammit..., corrected "What does this mean?" by something_wicked_thi · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Clearly, it's a sign of the Apocalypse. Dogs and cats living together and all that.

  8. Novell, RedHat, want to help out. by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seems like a good time for some of the larger distros to help Samba out.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  9. Who needs BadAnalogyGuy? by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

    When you've got me! I can always come up with a car analogy. Lessee....

    This is like [insert your favorite automaker here]'s engineers giving their competitors engineers an opportunity to ask questions and collaborate on their new engine designs.

    In fact, the more I say that, the more it does sound like Admiral Ackbar may be right here....

  10. Could SMB just go away? by MobyDisk · · Score: 1

    I don't want to sound like I'm pulling the rug out from under the Samba team, who has helped to make SMB a truly interoperable protocol - but there is a big part of me that just wants it to go away. It's really not very good. And very complicated. And inefficient. Oh I hope that somethin' better comes aloooong!

    1. Re:Could SMB just go away? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows is switching to NFS!

    2. Re:Could SMB just go away? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SRSLY?

    3. Re:Could SMB just go away? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We could design a better protocol but there'd still be a need to interoperate with the monopoly desktop. Anyway this is about Active Directory and nobody outside the "enterprise" windows world particularly wants to use that when we already have ldap.

      Microsoft have nothing to lose by engaging in AD interop work, ease of administration becomes a selling point for their server software in hetrogenus networks and it sends a message to regulators saying "we're not always about locking other OS's out".

    4. Re:Could SMB just go away? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      Windows has switched to CIFS (which I believe is SMBv2) and is a completely different beast, well, a bit different. Its faster for one - I've even had better performance from it than NFS.

      So, yes, Microsoft has moved away from SMB already, but it'll be around for quite a while (one of my customers still runs NT4), and Netbios is still used in some places.

      (I find it interesting though, in the Linux world, as new protocols become available, the old crufty ones die off quite quickly as the components implementing them stop being maintained and no-one bothers to install them. In the Windows world, such things linger forever.)

    5. Re:Could SMB just go away? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      <quote><p>(I find it interesting though, in the Linux world, as new protocols become available, the old crufty ones die off quite quickly as the components implementing them stop being maintained and no-one bothers to install them. In the Windows world, such things linger forever.)</p></quote>

      That's the result of the free software environment in the first place.  You don't necessarily need to shell out loads of cash to keep your software updated.  So there's far less reason to hang on to obsolete slow protocols.

    6. Re:Could SMB just go away? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

      LDAP is a protocol, not a directory service. AD supports LDAP just fine.

    7. Re:Could SMB just go away? by EvilRyry · · Score: 1

      CIFS is just a marketing name for SMB. They have made numerous additions to it over the years of course but at the core its the same. SMBv2 has landed in Vista and Server 08 and adds a few doodads but its mostly the same old not so great protocol (especially when high latency is involved).

      The CIFS vs NFS performance depends on versions, clients and servers. Personally, I've seen the better performance in Linux NFSv4 than on any combo of CIFS.

      Samba however is no slouch. I don't have a problem saturating my two 1GB Ethernet ports on a semi-regular basis.

  11. Bad analogies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    This seems roughly akin to two soldiers from opposing armies suddenly having brunch and discussing the finer points of shooting people.

    1. Re:Bad analogies? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1, Insightful

      This seems roughly akin to two soldiers from opposing armies suddenly having brunch and discussing the finer points of shooting people.

      Sigh. This is actually a pretty good analogy. The soldiers being the programmers just do what they are told to do by their superiors. Somebody in the upper echelons of Microsoft said quit shooting. The programmers, being programmers, revert to talking shop with their comrades-in-arms.

      Fail.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:Bad analogies? by John+Hasler · · Score: 1
      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  12. EEE. Embrace, Extend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    hmmm what was that last one again?

    1. Re:EEE. Embrace, Extend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought that was a computer series... doh!

  13. What I'd like to see... by Toll_Free · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If MS is truly working with Samba to get it 100 percent, what I'd REALLY like to see (and I won't believe they ARE working with SMB until then) is non-encrypted passwords.

    SHARE the SMB password system, make it available, so not every friggin windows machine has to do unencrypted passwords across the network to access SAMBA shares / printers / whatever.

    That's always been my BIGGEST stumbling block. Linux is touted as being so secure, but then it has to use unencrypted passwords to chat with the desktop clients for sharing.

    I KNOW it's an MS problem (their authentications schemas are proprietary), but if they claim to be trying for interoperability (which, they probably are), this was / is my biggest hurdle to accepting *nix in a windows shop.

    --Toll_Free

    1. Re:What I'd like to see... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's always been my BIGGEST stumbling block. Linux is touted as being so secure, but then it has to use unencrypted passwords to chat with the desktop clients for sharing.

      I know you are a troll, but in case anyone reading this doesn't know, this is incorrect.

      Samba uses encrypted passwords and Linux machines use encrypted passwords when file sharing. Google for the words samba kerberos.

    2. Re:What I'd like to see... by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Use Kerberos to authenticate. I do.

    3. Re:What I'd like to see... by Toll_Free · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, it wasn't a troll.

      Natively, without another method (kerberos), you have to use unencrypted passwords.

      That was my point. If it just >>worked, it would be better.

      My biggest problem with Linux is interoperability. Yes, it's there, but you ALWAYS seem to have to enable SOMETHING else.

      Hopefully, with this, you just install samba, configure your users, and that's it. Nothing else has to be added, changed or anything else.

      It's not like you have to set up a different authentication schema to use a MS Server share on Win2k, do you? For linux to get a stronger foothold in the enterprise (and to a limited extent, the home network), it needs to be a little easier to get it to operate with the other operating systems... (I'm NOT saying this is Linux's fault, I'm hoping that MS decides to open the protocol up a bit more on the authentication side).

      --Toll_Free

    4. Re:What I'd like to see... by Toll_Free · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the tip.

      I was going to respond again, but figured, my point was made in my response to the guy above you...

      And again, I'll check into that.

      I can't wait for it to just "work", though. No adding anything, no having to configure anything. Just make it like installing win server (insert version here), and it will work. No installing other authentication mechanisms or anything else. Just install, configure your Lusers, and it works.

      (I know, the proprietariness of SMB isn't linux's fault, it's MS's.... Not bashing linux, or trolling, as AC claimed above. If you want simplicity and workingness (that a word lol), then it should "just work"... IE, when SMB becomes as ubiquitous as USB, it will be nice :) )

      --Toll_Free

    5. Re:What I'd like to see... by Dog-Cow · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've never configured samba to use unencrypted passwords unless I had to connect from Win9x (which won't do encrypted passwords). I really have no idea what you are talking about.

    6. Re:What I'd like to see... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

      That you don't understand why it doesn't just work means you don't understand the intricacies of having multiple logon authorities with potentially different primary ways of storing password hashes. This is what you have when you have a client and server in no formal relationship (be they Windows or Linux, the issue is still material). This is WHY you do things like use LDAP and kerberos, to promote that interoperability and avoid things like having to update passwords in multiple places. How do you think a Windows domain "just works"?

      --
      THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
    7. Re:What I'd like to see... by Toll_Free · · Score: 1

      No, I completely understand why it doesn't work, your condescending shithead attitude notwithstanding.

      My point still remains, and is still valid. Until it "just works", it will be a PITA.

      Just like Novell Client32. Sheesh, what a clusterfuck that was, as well.

      And you're right, I dunno about heterogenous environments. My last job had AS/400s, Novell boxes, Wintel boxes and Linux. Truly, we didn't do anything to get things to interact with each other, did we? Not to mention, over 150 remote locations.

      --Toll_Free

    8. Re:What I'd like to see... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sigh. The misinformation level in these threads is amazing :-(.

      Yes, Win9x does encrypted passwords. They're not very good (lanman) but it is an encrypted password authentication.

      Jeremy.

    9. Re:What I'd like to see... by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 4, Informative

      > SHARE the SMB password system, make it available, so not every friggin windows machine has to do unencrypted passwords across the network to access SAMBA shares /
      > printers / whatever.

      Troll. This hasn't been the case since Samba 1.x.

      Jeremy.

    10. Re:What I'd like to see... by GDgonzo · · Score: 0

      What about SSL and TLS encryption for the password challenge?

  14. Doesn't surprise me, from where I sit by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I work for a company that does a lot of integration for enterprise customers. Sometimes there are spaces for Microsoft products in an otherwise Unix environment. Our customers happen to be pretty set on using Unix in general, so for Microsoft, it makes sense to make sure that their products can fit into an environment like that without any hassle. After all, a small sale is better than no sale.

    1. Re:Doesn't surprise me, from where I sit by dave562 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're right on target. All OS zealotry aside, there are some applications that are simply better on Windows. Conversely there are some applications that you'd never want to put anywhere near Windows. In the real world there is a middle ground. Maybe your ERP system needs to output some numbers for the managers to play with in Excel. It can toss them onto a Samba share and everything is good. That's just an example off of the top of my head. I'm sure there are hundreds of others.

  15. Who modded this down? by desmodrone · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This guy asked a relevant wuestion, albeit mking a minor html mistake in the process, and some jackass mod comes in and carpet bombs him? I want to know the same thing, this seems like a good thing, but submitter makes it out to be something else with his terminology. So, is it a good thing or not? And to whomever modded this guy down, you're a jerk and you owe him an apology.

    1. Re:Who modded this down? by desmodrone · · Score: 1

      "The guy deserved to be modded down; it'll teach him to use preview. It's kinda hard to overlook the fact that your entire post was in bold if you use preview."

      How does that in any way change the content of his post to "offtopic"?

      You're wrong AC, and you know it, which is why you post AC, so you don't have to actually be held to account for your completely indefensible troll posts.

      "Hey here's a guy with a useful question, but he made a minor html error and AHAHAHA NOW I'M GOING TO BE A DICK AND MOD HIM INTO OBLIVION!!!! AHAHAHA!!!"

      AC, you must be a miserable person.

    2. Re:Who modded this down? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He bolded a certain part of his post as the main point of his post. And now, we can't tell what that point is. Why should the post be modded up when it's incoherent?

    3. Re:Who modded this down? by FishAdmin · · Score: 1

      You're wrong AC, and you know it, which is why you post AC, so you don't have to actually be held to account for your completely indefensible troll posts.

      For the record, I agree that the mod was a jerk to hit Mr. Bold with an "offtopic" because of an html oversight. However, presuming that the AC is the Moderator in question, he posted as AC because you can't post in a forum you've already Modded; them's just the rules.

      What truly saddens me is that ANOTHER Mod wasted Points to mark the AC "Troll." The better use would have been bumping up someone with something insightful to say, instead of making the mistake of even DEALING with an AC. *SIGH* Oh, well. I'll take my Mod points elsewhere, as I can't Mod anyone in this forum branch now!

      --
      Last night I played a blank tape at full volume. The mime next door went nuts.
    4. Re:Who modded this down? by Gary+W.+Longsine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This place is chock full of morons like that, and it seems that many of them have unlimited mod points. Thanks for fighting the good fight.

      --
      If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
    5. Re:Who modded this down? by Samah · · Score: 1

      This is why I have AC defaulted to -6, and I very rarely click "X replies beneath your current threshold." If you have something constructive to say, log in. Otherwise, troll elsewhere.

      --
      Homonyms are fun!
      You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
    6. Re:Who modded this down? by GuloGulo · · Score: 1

      "However, presuming that the AC is the Moderator in question, he posted as AC because you can't post in a forum you've already Modded"

      Yes, actually you can, you are mistaken. It simply undoes the moderation you've made.

      THEM is the rules.

      --
      "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
    7. Re:Who modded this down? by GuloGulo · · Score: 1

      "Why should the post be modded up when it's incoherent?"

      Because we're smarter than you and it's not incoherent to us.

      Why should he suffer because you aren't very smart?

      --
      "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
  16. New Version by Molochi · · Score: 1

    If you can't beat'em, embrace'm.

    --
    "The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
    1. Re:New Version by dkleinsc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... and then claim patent or copyright infringement.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    2. Re:New Version by MikeDirnt69 · · Score: 1

      If you can't beat them, you suck.

      --
      Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
  17. Hell officially freezes over... by markp93 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... and yet the Cubs still can't win the World Series. :(

  18. They're Grrrrreeaaaat! by Windows_NT · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yea Tony the Tiger!
    Samba is great, Ive set up countless machines with it, but the big stumbling block i see right now is the integration with ADS replication. I know Samba 3 is supposed to have it, but it sounds like it will be minimum support. I would like to see where i could unplug one ADS server, plug in a Samba server and have no problems. Other than that, Samba is already a great product and I think working with M$ will only make it better.
    Cheers to Samba, and Cheers to MS for "Opening windows to a wider world."

    --
    Go go Gadget Nailgun!
  19. Fest by PadRacerExtreme · · Score: 1

    interoperable with AD. They have organized interoperability fests and have knowledgeable engineers answering technical questions

    What's a fest?

    --
    Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
    1. Re:Fest by Culture20 · · Score: 1

      What's a fest?

      Festival, Gathering, Party

    2. Re:Fest by Ultra64 · · Score: 1

      It's something that festers.

  20. Oh Noes! Where will the pigs fly? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 1

    If the sky is falling, where will our beloved pigs fly?

  21. Why should they work together? by HalAtWork · · Score: 1

    They're really doing well without Microsoft as it is. Taking into account the conflict of interest on MS's end to help out a competing product, what would be the incentive for the SAMBA team to work directly with those who may not have their best interests at heart?

    1. Re:Why should they work together? by Allador · · Score: 1

      Did you not read the article? They _are_ working together, extensively.

      Most of the article was about just that, how supportive and helpful MS is nowadays for the Samba team.

    2. Re:Why should they work together? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's an article?

  22. Microsoft's Target Has Moved by mpapet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Long ago, being having compatibility with Microsoft's file sharing backend would have been a big win, but the target has moved and, let's face it, Samba still isn't very easy to set up.

    In this case, Microsoft knows the knife is cutting both ways. The low-end license buyers won't bother paying for a Linux admin, so it doesn't harm Microsoft one bit.

    Microsoft's biggest customers buy the whole mess that includes their mail server and a bunch of other back office crap that remains totally closed.

    --
    http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
  23. Oh god mod, I'm SOOOO sorry!11eleven!1! by GuloGulo · · Score: 0

    What was I thinking trying to correct my previous error, and make the discussion more pleasant for everyone by making my post actually make sense (yay I closed the tag!)

    --
    "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
    1. Re:Oh god mod, I'm SOOOO sorry!11eleven!1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Nope. He got down-modded for posting the exact same thing with a closed tag... he got modded Redundant, because it was redundant...as well he should have. Also, probably for insulting the intelligence of most reading whom knew exactly what he was referring too without the necessity of re-posting.

      For example, I'm guessing there's no chance I'll get modded offtopic (now that I write this I'm getting worried though) because no one's going to read a post that starts off at (Score:1)

      ...real mods browse at -1 (and real slashdot time wasters...)

    2. Re:Oh god mod, I'm SOOOO sorry!11eleven!1! by GuloGulo · · Score: 1

      "Nope. He got down-modded for posting the exact same thing with a closed tag... he got modded Redundant, because it was redundant...as well he should have."

      No, AC we were discussing the "offtopic" mod I recieved for my first post, a very on topic question with a minor error.

      Keep trying though, maybe you won't be wrong eventually.

      --
      "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
    3. Re:Oh god mod, I'm SOOOO sorry!11eleven!1! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Keep trying though, maybe you won't be wrong eventually.

      An AC who might be right eventually...the sky is falling!

    4. Re:Oh god mod, I'm SOOOO sorry!11eleven!1! by GuloGulo · · Score: 0

      "An AC who might be right eventually...the sky is falling"

      Good thing you closed your tag, some brain dead twit might mistake your post for being "offtopic" if you didn't.

      --
      "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
  24. Brilliant Marketing by Ngarrang · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is just an extension of the MS mind set. No, not the chair-throwing, but making sure that at least THEIR technology is being used, and not some open standard. Microsoft would rather folks run pirated copies of XP than install Linux. Just extend this to AD on SAMBA. Microsoft can still lay claims to number of AD nodes and such.

    --
    Bearded Dragon
    1. Re:Brilliant Marketing by Shados · · Score: 5, Informative

      Normally I'd agree, but right now it seems there's more to it than that. Microsoft is trying to stop the whole "getting sued to oblivion because of their monopoly" thing.

      -They open source .NET (notice I'm not using capital letters here. Its not real open source, but you can see the code)
      -Silverlight running on multiple platform, and they're helping out the Linux version, plus are funding efforts to make a cross-platform eclipse-based set of tools.
      -Many of their new .NET projects are fully open source (for real)
      -They are packaging and distributing open source (even GPL in some cases) apps in easy installers (not code they control: the installer pull it from the original web site, so its not "extended)
      -They are embedding LGPL (I think thats the license) stuff in some of their core products (jquery in Visual Studio)
      -There's more that I forget.

      All of this aside the first one happened in the last couple of -months- (weeks in many cases). The first one is fairly recent.

      Part of it, like I said, is because of all the lawsuits over their monopoly. Another part (some of the above fit in that category) are from the inside: some of MS' own employees with influence want to see better open source integration.

    2. Re:Brilliant Marketing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think there's another factor that people are overlooking here: Ray Ozzie. Microsoft has started to open up a little on his watch. I generally tend to be skeptical as to Microsoft's motives, but most of the cases cited above seem to be genuine, non-cynical attempts to win some friends (and maybe influence a few people).

    3. Re:Brilliant Marketing by inKubus · · Score: 1

      It's because of developers. See, all this stuff is developer stuff. Because MSFT just wants to sell the OS (that being the stack of typical OS stuff, plus enterprise SSO/Management like AD, Sharepoint, IE, and MS Office). Yes, they offer a huge range of other products, but they make money on selling copy after copy of Windows, not selling a few copies of Great Plains, or CRM or whatever. So, the more reasons they give you to run windows on your server, desktop, whatever the more money they make. Right now, that means developers, since they can't buy any more software companies without the DoJ breathing down their neck.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
  25. This is old news, in a new format. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stage 1: EMBRACE

    Stage 2: Extend

    Stage 3: Extinguish

    So Samba extinction is only on stage 1. That's great, I thought we were well into stage 2 already. I guess maybe MS is worried that Samba will fork the userbase, they need EVERYONE to want Windows servers for the 3 step plan to work.

  26. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  27. It makes sense by Britz · · Score: 1

    Linux is a growing very fast as a server os. They will still make money on the clients. I mean they are even giving out SUSE vouchers. Next thing you know, they will port MS Office to SUSE.

  28. hah this is too little too late by DragonTHC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The samba team already made sure it was interoperable. You can use samba/ldap as an AD replacement.

    I have done it.

    MS just wants to save some customers by doing this. I say it's not going to work all that well.

    Those customers are probably not going to ditch windows desktops for linux anytime soon though.

    --
    They're using their grammar skills there.
    1. Re:hah this is too little too late by Shados · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its already interoperable, but the MS AD team isn't going to stop adding features just because its going to break the desktops of people who don't pay them. But if they break things too much, they get sued to death over their monopoly. Their only solution is to make sure the Samba project keeps up, so its what they do.

    2. Re:hah this is too little too late by dave420 · · Score: 1

      It's nowhere near as easy to set up as AD, though.

    3. Re:hah this is too little too late by PPH · · Score: 1

      The samba team already made sure it was interoperable. You can use samba/ldap as an AD replacement.

      I have done it.

      I've never had to trouble myself with the Windows side of this problem, but I've done Samba/LDAP as well. My impression is that the Windows people have to install a client, or at least tweak some settings on the desktop to make this work. That violates the Microsoft policy that basically states, "We will do whatever it takes to hide from our desktop customers the fact that huge IT departments are laboring to keep their precious systems running and connected."

      MS just wants to save some customers by doing this. I say it's not going to work all that well.

      The 'customer' in this case being some PHB with a Windows desktop being told to "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" [1].

      Those customers are probably not going to ditch windows desktops for linux anytime soon though.

      Not as long as they can boot up their new laptop and be comforted that it works right out of the box.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    4. Re:hah this is too little too late by raddan · · Score: 1

      Did you replace a fileserver, or did you replace your entire AD? In my opinion, Samba still has a lot of work left to do on the latter part, but it excels at the fileserver role.

    5. Re:hah this is too little too late by GoRK · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Did you replace AD with it or did you create an NT4 style domain? IMO I have never been able to achieve the AD replacement piece despite my best efforts with OpenLDAP and Kerberos and early releases of samba4. The first time anything expects to operate against a "real" active directory be it some remote software trying to authenticate, a NAS/filer, or software that "integrates" with AD, the setup has always fallen on its face. After a few attempts is simply becomes cheaper to deploy AD.

      The problem now is that a lot of new hardware and software coming out is getting harder and harder to shoehorn into samba/NT4 style environments. You have to jump through hoops to get it to work and a lot of times you have to sacrifice features or security when you do make it work. So this is a problem in "the enterprise."

      But it's starting to get bad with "the consumer" too. When a manufacturer's samba-running $99 NAS box that has worked great for a home user for years suddenly wont work with a new Vista machine it's perceived as microsoft's problem.

      Depending on your opinion of the matter, these might or it might not be really Microsoft's fault, but in any case they do have an interest (and by that I mean a financial incentive) in making sure their garbage works with everyone else's garbage.

    6. Re:hah this is too little too late by DragonTHC · · Score: 1

      complete AD replacement.

      You need the right schema to do it.

      the only real problem is, setting it up is extremely difficult.

      maintaining it is difficult.

      you have to do all the LDAP administration by hand.

      and I did this with samba 3.5.

      --
      They're using their grammar skills there.
  29. I have tons of experience by geekoid · · Score: 1

    How much are you going to pay me?

    I mean, if I am going to enable to 'Embrace' part of the borg, I might as well get paid.

    Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:I have tons of experience by DF5JT · · Score: 1

      > How much are you going to pay me?

      Enough.

      > I mean, if I am going to enable to 'Embrace' part of the borg, I might as well get paid.

      And so you should, unless of course you are boasting and you haven't even bothered to apply for a job that you have no other credentials for than your boasting.

  30. Terminal Illness by tuxgeek · · Score: 1

    We should be suspicious. M$ will never give up the battle so easily.
    If they cannot destroy FOSS through FUD marketing, maybe the new tactic is infiltrate and then destroy from within. Just like a cancer.

    Rumors of M$ trying to infiltrate ODF. Now Samba. Why on earth would they want to infiltrate ODF? Why don't they just invent their own open document format and fuck that up first? Oh, wait ....
    Be afraid, be very afraid.

    --
    "Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
  31. That's the great thing about the internet... by IANAAC · · Score: 1
    It's REALLY hard to hide your intentions.

    If they are in earnest working towards interoperability (it's documented that they are), then it's just that more difficult for them to prove infringement later on.

  32. Er, Andrew... by bbbaldie · · Score: 1

    Better check and see if that shiny new horse MS gave you is full of Trojan soldiers...

    1. Re:Er, Andrew... by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

      I think you mean Greek soldiers.

      --
      Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  33. Big Guys: time to chip in by alexborges · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I cannot believe the samba team is down to ONE full time developer.

    Its a HUGE project to undertake.

    When I buy my Red Hat, Suse or Ubuntu thingies for money, Im thinking some of that money goes to helping FOSS developers.

    Hey, it better be that way guys: put some dough into Samba.... NOW!

    --
    NO SIG
    1. Re:Big Guys: time to chip in by DF5JT · · Score: 1

      "I cannot believe the samba team is down to ONE full time developer."

      And you shouldn't believe it, since it's not true. There is a core team of roughly 10 people contributing about 99% of the code and all of them are full time developers paid for by various companies in the US and Europe.

    2. Re:Big Guys: time to chip in by rgviza · · Score: 1

      >I cannot believe the samba team is down to ONE full time developer.

      That's one full time developer working on AD. Not everyone on the samba team works on active directory support.

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    3. Re:Big Guys: time to chip in by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I seem to recall that the SAMBA lead dev (Jeremy ...) was hired by Novell. Then he quit when Novell entered into the patent protection and interoperability agreement with Microsoft.

      So maybe we should demand that the samba team should go back to work with Novell ... NOW!

    4. Re:Big Guys: time to chip in by OriginalArlen · · Score: 1

      Those of you who still have jobs, or who (like me) are lucky enough not to have a mortgage or any debt, do the decent thing and donate to the Samba project. You know it makes sense! (I just tipped ''em $100 and BOY! do I feel smug, self-righteous and validated as a human being! ;))

      I must have missed the memo about Samba being able to serve as an AD domain controller - that's huge for me.

      --

      Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
  34. Re:Windows 7 by thatskinnyguy · · Score: 1

    Not trolling here, but doesn't it seem like every time Microsoft is onto an idea for a feature that's useful it gets tossed aside when the release version comes around? At least that's what I've seen in Windows. They really should take a page from Steve Job's book from NeXTSTEP and have seamless interoperability with all different kinds of networks and operating systems. But that user-friendliness would be time-consuming and not profitable.

    --
    The game.
  35. Novel already thought of this. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It both pretty sad and telling when history shows reminds us of the backlash when novel did this. The church of stallman completely misrepresented the Novel-MS deal to the point that an entirely new GPL (one that won't change anything here either) and Andrew just had to leave Novel in a storm to push the idea just to find out that Samba is working with MS after all.

    And yes, the Novel deal was blown out of portion and you can tell this by when the detailed about the deal was released, the reaction of the community was that the deal covered nothing of importance. How does it feel to be used like a tool to push an agenda that was failing at the time? I mean we should have been concentrating on the entire Vista breaks the retraining cause the TCO to be cheaper with MS model and we could have been offering a new choice to businesses who could litterally benefit from OSS as well as contribute in ways that would have pulled it out of the Fringe catagory. Instead, we ended up with in fighting and enough FUD from our own side to set wide spread adoption back and stunt it's growth for several year.

    Now we find out that working with MS isn't bad at all, it was just a method to push the GPLv3.

    1. Re:Novel already thought of this. by Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam · · Score: 2, Informative

      "and Andrew just had to leave Novel in a storm to push the idea"

      No, that would be me, not Andrew Bartlett. Andrew has been happily working at Red Hat for many years now.

      Jeremy.

  36. Microsoft finally learning? by i_want_you_to_throw_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Remember when IBM was the Microsoft of it's day? Now it's a darling because it learned a valuable lesson....

    Ultimately companies that create standards will eventually have to transition to a company that contributes to them.

    I'm no M$ fan at all and that goes back a ways for me. On the other hand, Microsoft seems to be showing signs that they have accepted open source as something that's here to stay (although they hate it).

    Next up on the radar? Google

    Once they became a publicly traded company, responsible for only making a profit for their shareholders, it appears more and more like their motto should transition to "We do less evil than everyone else"

  37. No legal personnel? by joeflies · · Score: 3, Insightful
    They have organized interoperability fests and have knowledgeable engineers answering technical questions without legal or marketing drones getting in the way.

    Wouldn't this be a GOOD time to have legal drones getting involved? No, not Microsoft's lawyers, the ones that will protect the interests of the Samba intellectual property?

  38. Re:Bill Gates by Erpo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not suprised.

    For a long time Microsoft has had a package called Services For Unix that you can install on Windows. It allows Windows to act as a server but not a client with respect to standard *nix protocols like NFS.

    Microsoft wants to replace *nix in the server space by breaking into purely *nix environments and replacing an entrenched server operating system with their operating system.

    Whether this is done by making Windows interoperable with the protocols that are already on the clients or changing the clients to interoperate with Windows as a server is immaterial.

    Unless they're making it easy for people to replace Windows AD servers with Samba servers running on Linux, this is not a big deal.

  39. Engineer nature by Godji · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Duh. Good engineers with no PHB supervision will tend to to great things. Even the ones at Microsoft.

    What makes Microsoft Microsoft is the fact that engineers are very rarely left under little or no PHB control. When they are, news like that will follow.

  40. Changing environment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS must be feeling the heat from a landslide of outstanding, game changing products at so many fronts: virtualization, ZFS, Linux, Mac, etc. They can no longer afford not to co-operate if they want to stay in the game by any shape and form. The MS stronghold on IT has been falling apart at an accelerated pace, MS is just falling behind of the latest, most innovative IT solutions.

  41. You are confused. by Zombie+Ryushu · · Score: 5, Informative

    You have confused SMB, NMB, and SMBX, which Microsoft calls CIFS.

    SMB is not all that different in how it works from FTP. Its a TCP Protocol that operates on Port 139.

    NMB (NetBios Message Block) is how Windows provides SMB with services like Name Resolution. It also handles things called Browser elections which determine who the Domain Controllers will be.

    Windows NT4 and 9x is hard Coded to only allow use of NMB to resolve SMB names. This was a horrible lockin tactic for Windows NT4 Server. Windows 2000 on can use NMB or DNS.

    SMBX operates on port 445, and acts independantly of NMB and SMB.

    Linux machines from Samba 2.2 on could use DNS to resolve SMB paths. Even though Windows machines are hard coded not to allow that.

    Another lockin tactic with SMB was the use of the UNC (Universal Name Convention) which was FAR from Universal. The proper URI for smb is smb://. Konqueror has it right.

    So, that should clear that up.

    The worst offense Microsoft ever did was when they added the PAC to Kerberos. If there is a beacon shining in the night why the GPL is superior to the BSD liscence, the Kerberos PAC that has kept Active Directory Dominant for almost ten years should be a becon in the night. MS Kerberos PAC is incompatible with virtually EVERY SINGLE Kerberos server out there.

    1. Re:You are confused. by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      If I hadn't already posted, I'd mod you up.

    2. Re:You are confused. by EvilRyry · · Score: 1

      AD has certainly caused interop issues, but I don't think the PAC has much to do with it. There were some initial issues where programs would freak out when the saw the oversized Kerberos ticket, but they weren't a huge obstacle in most cases. I can get a ticket from a Heimdal realm with Windows and I can kinit my way to a ticket from AD on my Linux box (granted I don't get a PAC).

      The thing that has kept AD dominant for so long is a rather nonstandard schema and more importantly a great big mass of proprietary RPCs that are used for everything from replication to group policy.

    3. Re:You are confused. by NekoXP · · Score: 1

      You lost your credibility when you said "another lockin tactic" - absolutely none of those are vendor lock-ins except for the PAC fiasco.

      They're fucking dumb design decisions, but they're not Microsoft actively trying to make things break on other systems. UNC has been the standard on Windows since before KDE even existed. How is smb:// the proper URI, then? It bloody well isn't.

      Oh and I've never ever heard anyone call SMB over TCP "SMBX" - nobody in Microsoft, nobody on the Samba team, nobody in any Windows server environment.

      And the GPL is not a shining light here, it's a shower of shit. If Kerberos was GPL it would not have stopped Microsoft from reimplementing it clean-room and THEN embracing and extending it, or perhaps even worse, using some other authentication system which you would have absolutely NO starting point to derive the differences from (at least MS Kerberos is a well known weirdness and you could patch the standard Kerberos server to support it. Thank Bob that Kerberos is open source, but let's not get into the "GPL means it would never have happened this way" fallacy.

      There are very few instances where moving from BSD/MIT licensing to GPL actually helps anyone.

    4. Re:You are confused. by styrotech · · Score: 1

      If Kerberos was GPL it would not have stopped Microsoft from reimplementing it clean-room and THEN embracing and extending it, or perhaps even worse, using some other authentication system which you would have absolutely NO starting point to derive the differences from (at least MS Kerberos is a well known weirdness and you could patch the standard Kerberos server to support it.

      Not only that, the Kerberos RFCs allowed for vendor extensions like the PAC. The PAC didn't break anything MIT Kerberos already did - it was just added an extra bit of info for Windows specific stuff. The only crappy part was MS not documenting how it worked until much later on, temporarily preventing other systems making use of it.

      Anyone that paints this as a GPL is better than BSD/MIT issue is either ignorant or trolling. The Kerberos protocols are open standards defined in RFCs, and MS would've largely implemented their codebase from scratch even with the MIT licenses. As you say the only thing a GPLed Kerberos would've achieved is making MS much more likely to have rolled their own completely proprietary solution instead and Samba 4 might've never been possible due to the increased complexity involved.

  42. Look at what they're doing in the HE's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With MS increasing 'interoperability' with FOSS, many Universities are standardizing on MS products...

    e.g. Oxford University, UK http://blogs.msdn.com/ukhe/archive/2008/10/22/oxford-university-and-microsoft-launch-it-collaboration.aspx

    In the past, one of FOSS's heartlands was in higher-education, where linux systems do a lot of science work, producing thousands of graduates with linux experience.

    Today, academics in faculties can no-longer demand the use of open, standards-based systems from their central IT since MS is 'open enough'. Don't believe me? Look at the language in the Oxford announcement.

    Of course to get the full benefit of the 'open' MS system, you need to use MS products...

  43. short staff should be a clue as to their effort by Locutus · · Score: 1

    When Microsoft does something which does nothing to protect their position in the market and is more likely to do the opposite, they do it at a snails pace and kicking and screaming all the way. For example, JDBC drivers for MS SQL Server in the late 90s as Java was picking up steam. Microsoft eventually said they'd do it but the release date was 18 months out. Another recent example is the OLPC version of Windows XP which has taken over a year. They don't want to do these things and make more of a PR stunt out of them than actually effort and work. You could also look at the US and EU anti-trust issues still dragging on for years also.

    The only thing of interest I glean from this is that GNU/Linux has grown to the point where Microsoft is put into this position of foot dragging. THAT is a very good sign. IMO. I would not expect much real help from MS in regards to improving SAMBA and AD interoperability.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  44. Samba is GPL 3 licensed. I think Microsoft would have a hard time with any patent suite in light of that.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  45. Of course not. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or they'll just wait until their ideas are fully integrated with samba, and then threaten anyone who uses it with patent lawsuits...

    I have a hard time seeing any other outcome.

    Folks like you remind me of that old fart judge who kept on IBM's ass about their consent decree regarding their monopolistic practices decades ago. The judge wouldn't let up even when MS was kicking IBM's teeth in and taking market share. That judge is one of the reasons why IBM couldn't market OS/2 effectively; resulting in OS/2 getting beaten by Windows.

    MS is now getting its ass kicked by Apple, Linux, Redhat, newer technologies, and other F/OSS projects. Don't believe me? Look at MS' financial statements. They're not growing like they did and they're starting to stagnate.

    Your attitude about MS is dated. You MS haters need to get a life.

  46. Next up: MS releases OpenSource AD compat Samba by boyfaceddog · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MS will release Open Source AD compatible Samba - which everyone will use and will come with some weird license that everyone will argue with and MS will simply wipe out all products that use the MS AD Samba.

    Embrace, extend, extinguish.

    How hard is this to understand?

    --
    Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
  47. Not a client? by HonoredMule · · Score: 5, Informative

    [Services For Unix] allows Windows to act as a server but not a client with respect to standard *nix protocols like NFS.

    I use SFU solely for enabling my Windows boxes to connect to NFS shares...so what are you talking about?

  48. Re:Bill Gates by EvilRyry · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Uhm, that's exactly what they are doing. Samba4 can (mostly) act as a domain controller in an AD environment. This even includes replicating to Windows AD controllers.

  49. It's A Trick; Get An Axe. by frankenheinz · · Score: 1

    What, no patent issues here ? Oh wait, I get it, greater "interoperability" leads to more targets for bogus patent claims like the ones my poor firm (a datacenter/hosting business) received a few days ago.
    Here is the letter we received as a follow-up to an in-person meeting with a lame patent enforcement goon regarding claims to the effect that all the "linux" servers in our datacenter somehow violate yet-unspecified patents
    - - - - -
    From: XXXXXX
    Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 12:26 PM
    To: XXXXXXXXX
    Cc: XXXXXXXXXX
    Subject: XXXXXXXX - XXXXX NDA
    XXXX,

    It was a pleasure to meet with you Tuesday. I appreciate your interest and concern regarding the patent matters we discussed. As requested, I am sending (attached) a mutual, two-way Non-Disclosure Agreement. I believe that you will find this agreement fair and reasonable for both of our companies. Please sign and date, then scan (or FAX) a copy to me â" and also forward the original document via mail. My contact info is below.
    Once I receive this document, I can work with you to make arrangements to meet with you again to show XXXXXXXXâ(TM)s patents and how they are infringed. If you wish, I can also forward licensing terms.
    I look forward to working with you to amicably resolve this important matter.
    --------- [NDA available upon request]

    --
    The law is not an ass. No really.
  50. Working *with* or *against* it? by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is not a new thing. They have been working with samba for a couple of years at least.

    Why is it that the Samba crew does all the work, including taking the case all the way through the courts, and shot down the appeals, and shooting down disinformation, and dealing with the anti-FOSS documentation NDAs, only for "JP" to give the headlines to M$?

    The headline should reflect the content of the article and that is about the rapid headway that the Samba team is making. It's not the first time, nor even one of the first times, that the M$ developers have had to rely on the Samba team. Let's give credit where credit is due.

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  51. They might not being evil this time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Considering comments were said when gates stepped down, that the company would start looking to open source (hinting that gates was the one against it, and looking at his past, he thinks software should cost money in all situations) Someone at microsoft is being smart about this.

    Embrace open software, why? simple. they can get mindshare. Instead of fighting opensource, they can get new customers if they act as one of the "good guys" and for years I thought it'd make more sense if they supported software that supports their technologies on other platforms. They not only have their own platform, but can have control on other platforms as well. people who will always use a non-MS platform, will be able to use MS technologies. Which is a win win situation for microsoft, because at the end of the day. They have a long term survival plan, and can keep people using their technologies and services, rather than trying to force everyone to use their platform for everything. Namely because with vista, their platform is driving people away. If they plan to survive, they have to embrace, and accept for once.

  52. This is no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look Ms HAS to appear to be working to integrate with other OS's for various very valid reason's.

    But the big one is Market Dominance, if they appear to be the only OS company in the market then they run the risk of being called a monopoly and *could* get broken up into separate companies, they scrapped by the first time the US tried this but they didn't fare very well in Europe, with hefty fines and other such legal woes.

    It is in their best interest to work with opensource to make SAMBA work with windows easier, that way they can point to Linux/MAC OSX/*nix and say look we helped them we have competitors in the market we are doing our part to work with them, it makes them look less aggressive to the Government types, are they going to do something underhanded? who knows, would it be in their best interest too, not really but Corporate management types have a way of being paranoid about losing money/market share or about *revealing* something to a competitor, so I wouldn't put anything past them at this stage.

    Right now SAMBA users should be very happy for this apparent win, user's and ultimately customers are getting better inter op between linux/unix and windows, and the best part is the code they help with is protected by GPL so once the cat is out of the bag there's no getting it back in.

    Chalk this up as a win people!

  53. AD is a broken implementation of LDAP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why is Microsoft spending money to make sure Samba is compatible with the proprietary, broken implementation of LDAP that is AD, just now as Samba becomes more and more popular? Why not spend the money to fix AD so that it is compatible with LDAP? Wait... oh yes. I get it.

    1. Re:AD is a broken implementation of LDAP by TheRealSlimShady · · Score: 1

      You're aware that LDAP is a protocol right (that's the P in LDAP), and that AD is more than just an implementation of a directory service access protocol? AD provides more than LDAP services (e.g. Group Policy etc etc), but uses LDAP to provide a standard API to talk to the AD services.

  54. With Microsoft's new security hole... by John+Hasler · · Score: 1

    ...anyone on any computer on your network can do anything at all on any of your Windows boxes. What could be more compatible than that?

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
  55. I'll believe it when I see it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    smbclient -L 192.168.1.120
    Connection to 192.168.1.120 failed (Error NT_STATUS_PC_LOAD_LETTER) WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!!11!!?

  56. This is patently incorrect. by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://linux.ittoolbox.com/documents/popular-q-and-a/how-to-set-up-a-samba-server-with-encrypted-passwords-2278

    Samba has supported LM, NTLM, NTLM v2, and kerberos authentication for quite a long time (since v2.2 at least). Your gripe with "unencrypted passwords" is only valid if you want to use PAM for password authentication (which requires the password to be sent over the wire to be "applied" at the server side as if you typed it into the login prompt) and you are not using kerberos or LDAP, as you should be. This feature of windows is purposely disable in XP SP1 and greater because it is retarded and you don't know how to properly set up your linux box in a sane way.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  57. Re:Bill Gates by master5o1 · · Score: 1

    Doesn't Windows AD server just sound like a really bad spam-infected Windows server to you? I mean, what company names their server with 'ad' in it. Windows AD[vertisement] server, now I know where the spam comes from.

    --
    signature is pants
  58. Re:Bill Gates by Allador · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unless they're making it easy for people to replace Windows AD servers with Samba servers running on Linux, this is not a big deal.

    Did you not read the article you're posting about?

    The bulk of the article is about precisely that. He's the lead dev on samba building an AD server, and talking about the wonderful level of support ms is (now) giving them.

    He specifically mentioned that since they're the only ones working on an AD server replacement, at one of the 'plug fests' at MS' redmond campus, they were the only ones there to take advantage of it.

    In addition, he mentions that the team on samba for building an AD server is short on developers, and is asking for help.

  59. uh huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just like all the other cooperation they have given other businesses and partners and open source over the years. This is a variation on this business tactic Poison Pill. Happy freeking almost Halloween (memo) Happy freekin patent threats.

    Don't trust them, don't work with them, stop trying to make their stuff work with really free open source OSes and other software and companies (take a hint, Moz, you are being suckered constantly). Shun them creeps, stop using their crap, stop doing their work for them or eventually they will destroy you as soon as they see they have you trapped and they have compromised and borrowed as much as they think they can get away with. They have NEVER changed and they are NOT going to change.. How many freaking clues do FOSS people need to see the management at microsoft is teh enemy? Don't let any of their employees within a mile of your code. Stop coding for that OS. This is the 21st century, time to admit reality and move on. Do you really think it is a good idea to beat yourself with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop?

    Look, here's an old fable that fits: Scorpion and the Frog

  60. Do you mean that... by mebrahim · · Score: 2

    Microsoft is at embrace stage?

  61. WINS by inKubus · · Score: 1

    Don't forget WINS server!

    But yes, I was going to bring up LDAP, DNS and Kerberos, since that's what AD is, with some minor incompatibilities. All of which have been around for >30 years..

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
  62. You are even more confused. by rgviza · · Score: 1

    First, SMB is nothing like FTP. It's a whole different protocol, which uses a different network transport(when dealing with NetBEUI), with a different set of clients. FTP is a pure file transfer protocol, which uses pure TCP/IP.

    Second dns/bind does not understand NetBIOS and doesn't do NetBIOS name resolution. That's wrong protocol and wrong name resolution service.

    Just FYI ; )

    Here's a link to better help you understand how NetBIOS name resolution works:

    http://www.tech-faq.com/understanding-netbios-name-resolution.shtml

    Here's just one of the differences FTA:
    "The NetBIOS namespace is flat. This is different to the hierarchical namespace of Domain Name System (DNS). Because the NetBIOS namespace is not as scaleable as DNS, it does not work well for large networks. NetBIOS naming should be used for private networks."

    -Viz

    --
    Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
  63. WRONG by KidSock · · Score: 1

    make it available, so not every friggin windows machine has to do unencrypted passwords across the network to access SAMBA shares

    This is completely WRONG.

    Samba fully supports NTLM and NTLMv2 which Windows will initiate without any configuration. And if the Samba machine is a domain member, Windows clients will also do Kerberos.

    A few years back Samba required that you run some goofy commands to setup the password database. As a result, some users would simply punt and turn off encrypted passwords. I think that might be what you're thinking of.

    No one should every be sending domain passwords over the network in plain text. However, last I checked, Windows clients actually do have a security policy setting that instructs the client to use plain text authentication. But you should never use that in a domain environment. It's for home users who just want to drop the pants on security for maximum compatibility with legacy systems (e.g. Windows 3.x).

  64. Why hasn't this been modded ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    itsatrap yet?

  65. This is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    a Microsoft Trojan Horse!!!

  66. That's great! by ghostbar38 · · Score: 0

    When I tried to use Samba fully as if I were using AD it was a hell...

    --
    ghostbar page.
  67. Sharepoint? by mab · · Score: 1

    Probably because Microsoft want Businesses to keep their files in Sharepoint now.

  68. Oxymoron by jawahar · · Score: 1

    Interoperability without Open source is Oxymoron.

  69. The next Slashdotter to use the term "IP"... by Yfrwlf · · Score: 1

    ...shall get beaten with a Microsoft Bob for Dummies book.

    Most all the software "ideas" MS has programmed has either been copied/taken or bought out, and regardless of that because that's a stupid topic, it's all just software and math, and there is no "property" definitely not on what the software can do, because software should only have copyrights, if that, and software patents can go to hell.

    So, stop perpetuating terminology from companies that want you to support software patents by using terms like "our technology" or "IP". It's just fucking software and it's nothing new any way. You're still drawing pictures with crayons. Wake me up when developers create programs by strapping on brain scanners.

    --
    Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
  70. Ahahhah the truth hurts huh? by GuloGulo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I guess the truth hurt so much you had to track me down huh?

    Good. It's nice to know you realize what you did was so embarassing for you that you have to censor any criticism of your stupid moderation.

    I won and you know it. Sorry loser, but you can't censor that away.

    --
    "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
  71. Not by choice... by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft don't do anything to help interoperability unless they're forced to...
    If they have a dominant position in a market they will fight tooth and nail to prevent interoperability...
    But where there are sufficient competitors that they are forced to provide interoperability or lose customers, that's the only time they bother, and usually with an eye to pushing customers onto their own proprietary alternatives and locking them in.

    Look at history, they only implemented TCP/IP because it was too ubiquitous to ignore, and people were buying third party stacks.

    In the case of Samba, there are now far too many samba based embedded devices out there, most of the storage servers you can buy are now running Samba on top of Linux or a BSD-derived OS, and if a new version of windows broke compatibility with all these devices it would severely hinder it's take up.

    --
    http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
  72. Ahahhah the truth STILL hurts huh? by GuloGulo · · Score: 1

    Ahha what kind of fucking loser are you that you track down a week old post to mod down?

    Keep it coming cocksucker, my karma won't run out before your mod points, you twat.

    How fucking sad that you are so devoid of intelligent opinions that you have to waste mod points in a place where they serve no purpose but to demonstrate how pathetic and empty your life is, as you seemingly have time to peruse old worthless stories making useless moderations.

    Keep proving me right.

    --
    "The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...