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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."
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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) .NET projects are fully open source (for real)
-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
-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.
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.
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.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
[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?
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.
.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.
That's the state of play. Once
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?
"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.
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.