Windows Server Trusts Samba4 Active Directory

Darren Ginter writes "A group of Samba v4 developers recently spent a week in Redmond to work with Microsoft on Active Directory interoperability(?!). The result? Windows Server will now join, trust and replicate a Samba-based Active Directory using Microsoft-native protocols. Although Samba v4 is still in the alpha stages, this is a huge step for open source. Or it could be a trap."

Comments

IT'S A TRAP !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't I learned you nothing?

Re:IT'S A TRAP !!

[joaommp]

I trully hope not. I'm counting on this to workout.

Re:IT'S A TRAP !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it will be a workout.

Re:IT'S A TRAP !!

[tw45]

Get an axe!

Trap?

[Anonymous Coward]

Proabably not. If Microsoft helped, then they'd have unclean hands.

Re:Trap?

[sumdumass]

The trap wouldn't necessarily be Microsoft claiming patent infringement but offering the technology with a license that's incompatible with the GPLv3's patent requirements. Since the GPLv3 and Samba going to the GPLv3 license, it would basically cause Samba 4 to discard all works done under the GPLv3 license and basically cripple Samba to pre-GPLv3 conditions with a lot of work to redo a lot of functionality and improvements.

I warned of this possibility way back when the GPLv3 was a heated debate and again when Samba announced it's move to the GPLv3. Without a firm Commitment from Microsoft, this will forever linger and remain a possible threat. BTW, the unclean hands portion would drastically be negated in a court if MS offered a free as in beer license for any IP it considers infringing even if it isn't free as in speech and compatible with the GPLv3 requirements.

Re:Trap?

[shentino]

Actually if MS contributed anything to a GPLv3'ed version of SAMBA then they've triggered the automatic patent license.

Re:Trap?

[sumdumass]

That's only true if MS contributed the code and it would only be true for the specific code they contribute. However, the way I understood the article as well as articles on this in the past is that MS is not giving code, they are giving APIs and technology insight to the samba team so that they can implement it on their own. That wouldn't trigger the automatic patent license which leads to the vulnerability I mentioned.

Like I said, they need a firm commitment in writing from MS that denies such licensing changes or provisions in order for Samba to be safe. Without it, it actually could be a trap. But the trap is there already even if they didn't work with MS. All MS would have to do is patent it's authentication schemes, claim it's a defensive then issue an open but incompatible license for it and we are at the same situation with or without MS cooperating with the Samba team.

This is a real threat to be considered for any GPLv3 code. Until software patents are gone, any software that gets patented can destroy the GPLv3 code by the GPL's own wording. Take Gnome or KDE for instance, if they went GPLv3, they would have had to go backwards (unless they just ignore the GPLv3 terms) because someone patented icons and isn't licensing them.- Now I don't know if the patent has since been revoked or if it is still in force or whatever, the problem with the GPLv3 wording is that as soon as it's known, the software can't be distributed until a patent license allowing the rights as specified in the GPL is secured.

Of course it's a trap

[symbolset]

But the supreme court may void software patents, so it might not spring.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[Z00L00K]

And then - "Who do you trust and who do you serve?".

Anyway - you can't be too sure about anything these days, but if Microsoft doesn't cooperate they will have an even lower respect from the open source community than they have today.

In the end Microsoft are probably needing this cooperation.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[wizardforce]

And the DOJ might enforce the antitrust ruling against MS... I am sorry but I think that there is little chance that SCOTUS will do that right thing here.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget the small area of The Rest Of The World who doesn't care a crap about American patents. Thank Microsoft for helping Samba devs!

Re:Of course it's a trap

[grcumb]

Anyway - you can't be too sure about anything these days, but if Microsoft doesn't cooperate they will have an even lower respect from the open source community than they have today.

Well, that explains the move to 64-bit. We were at risk of over-running the lower bound of the signed long integer that would have been required to express this new depth of loathing. Now, they're good until at least 2038. 8^)

Re:Of course it's a trap

[RocketRabbit]

Microsoft is fine with Open Source. Hell, they are actively supporting it. After all, Open Source is mainly a way to get geeks to do work for you for free.

However, Microsoft is an avowed enemy of Free Software. Free Software is not the same thing as Open Source. This is something that most people don't realize, as your comment indicates.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[lbbros]

I have to point out that the Samba developers worked with the SFLC (so, lawyers) before getting to work with the specifications they had received.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[Bigjeff5]

Wow, how the hell did that get modded "Informative"? The mods are clueless, that should be +5 Funny.

That was a joke people, get it? Lower bounds of loathing? 32 bit signed integers are orders of magnitude smaller than 64 bit signed integers, so the lower bounds of a signed integer are much much higher for a 64 bit operating system than with a 32 bit, which means the move to a 64 bit operating system was in order to increase the amount of bullshit we'll tolerate. Get it now?

Oh well, I tried.

That was good man.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[erroneus]

Well, I didn't really WANT to get it, but now that you have made me get it, now I get it. I'm not laughing and I certainly won't use that joke any time soon. It might work well on the big bang theory though.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[Eirenarch]

'In the end Microsoft are probably needing this cooperation.'

While this is undoubtedly true it is also true that the open source community needs it even more.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[Lennie]

An other big misconception is, Free Software doesn't need to be free (as in beer). I think a lot of people don't understand that either.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[symbolset]

I've been watching my nation's highest court for thirty years. In all that time the only thing I've learned is that I never know what they're going to do.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[symbolset]

I have a lot of respect for the SFLC and hold their lawyers in as high esteem as is possible for me to consider a lawyer, which aint much.

But they're fighting a war on a foggy field. There's mayhem afoot and nobody knows what the balance of power is.

Re:Of course it's a trap

[sg_oneill]

Forget the DOJ, they had the opportunity a decade ago and balked it when George bush ordered them to back down. Its the europeans they have to fear. The EU has had a fun little habit of issueing them multi billion dollar slapdowns for anticompetitive behavior against european companies and consumers, and I suspect that, more than anything has forced the decision to start behaving for microsoft.

As long as the EU remains vigilant , microsoft wont dare try and shut down its only competition for file serving and risk getting utterly disemboweled by the EU.

Andrew could end up a [i]very rich man[/i] should Microsoft dare risk the EU's temper.

When in doubt, it's a trap

[Anonymous Coward]

As any good /b/tard knows, when in doubt it's always a trap

Re:When in doubt, it's a trap

[brackishboy]

Jesus Christ, I was expecting an article on Admiral Ackbar! NSFW, man, NSFW!

Oh, great

[HangingChad]

Windows Server will now join, trust and replicate a Samba-based Active Directory using Microsoft-native protocols.

Now I have to get ready for the 4 horsemen, rain of fire and the end of time.

Re:Oh, great

[rcolbert]

...might I also recommend heating up a pot of chocolate fondue in preparation for the locust swarm?

Re:Oh, great

[__aasqbs9791]

In related news, this winter is set for record lows in Hell. Frost is being expected for the first time ever.

Re:Oh, great

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell freezes over annually.

Among English-speaking tourists, one of those popular Norwegian postcards depicted the station with a heavy frost on the ground. The visual joke was that the picture showed "Hell frozen over", though there was no caption to make the point. Temperatures in Hell can reach -20 C during winter.

Re:Oh, great

[toopok4k3]

And here I was thinking we were saved after they announced Duke Nukem: Forever being cancelled...

Re:Oh, great

[Narpak]

Windows Server will now join, trust and replicate a Samba-based Active Directory using Microsoft-native protocols. then blame all problems on Samba/Linux/OpenSource/Liberals

Fixed that for you.

Re:Oh, great

[jamstar7]

And here I was thinking we were saved after they announced Duke Nukem: Forever being cancelled...

Wait, what?? I never got that memo...

Re:Oh, great

[NoOneInParticular]

Can this in any way be related back to the fifth horseman: the EU competition regulators that demanded interoperability from Microsoft?

Re:Oh, great

[aztracker1]

That was actually my first thought. The biggest reason I really don't think MS will submarine .Net/mono is because they haven't pushed back on Samba or WINE for this long. With this, I'm actually pretty comfortable with it.

It is probably a result of the interoperability push from the EU, especially considering the Samba guys were the ones that didn't capitulate to MS when the EU anti-trust trials were proceeding.

Re:Oh, great

[Bigjeff5]

Well hey, at least now someone can actually tell us what hell is like!

Re:Oh, great

[Lennie]

In that case maybe we should be worried if Hell doesn't have a proper winter.

In that case global warming would be very clearly a fact (which it already is).

It's a nice story...

[rcolbert]

...and good to know the hard working Samba team came away from Redmond feeling positive about the progress that was made. I don't think it's an earth moving change in the relationship between MS and the free world, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Platinum Dragon]

I don't think it's an earth moving change in the relationship between MS and the free world, but it's better than a sharp stick in the eye.

I'll breathe easier if this doesn't result in legal trouble for Linux distributions and the *BSDs down the road. MS has a long, long way to go before I could ever trust them to do something with the open source community for any purpose other than to, eventually, obliterate it as a threat.

Publicly recanting the Halloween Documents, and particularly "embrace, extend, and extinguish" would be a start, if only a start.

OK, it's an MS-created protocol anyway, but I'm still very suspicious about MS management's ultimate motives in allowing this collaboration to take place.

Re:It's a nice story...

[rliden]

I'm kind of surprised you don't get what's going on here. MS sees a way to make money from open source. I doubt they'll trumpet that from the rooftops, but I think it's exactly what's happening lately. This will be a selling point for Server 2008 and another reason for MS customers to upgrade from Sever 2003 to 2008. So this potentially has the ability to increase upgrade sales to existing customers and provide possible sales to new multi-platform customers.

Everyone is so worried about the MS of 10 years ago that I think they're missing the dynamic now. Free and/or Open Source software and platforms aren't going away. If you can't make your competition leave then you might as well capitalize on them and make money. MS has far more to gain from interoperability with Linux, BSD, and other open source platforms than they do from not working together (it's just taking a long time for the boardroom to move it in that direction). FOSS on the other hand has far less to gain, in my opinion, by working together and everything to gain by not making things work together since the main business model of FOSS is support service oriented.

I think what we're seeing with this and their VM offering is to make themselves a viable player with Linux in the server arena.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Platinum Dragon]

I'm kind of surprised you don't get what's going on here. MS sees a way to make money from open source.

Get back to me in five years, and we'll see how this plays out. I'd love to see MS back away from its old policies, but they actually need to do it before I'll give them credit for it.

Re:It's a nice story...

[cetialphav]

I think the point here is that Microsoft's behavior is being driven by the market. The market is clearly saying that they like a lot of the FOSS solutions. If Microsoft tries to pretend like these solutions does not exist, then they will allow a software ecosystem to develop in which they have no influence. A dominant player simply cannot allow that to happen.

In the case of FOSS, there is no way to bankrupt or buyout the competition. They still try to compete with marketing FUD, but it is obvious that that is only good for trying to slow the growth of FOSS.

This isn't about Microsoft turning over a new leaf. The real story is that market acceptance of FOSS solutions has grown to the point where none of the major players (including Microsoft) can afford to ignore it. For someone like me who has used Linux seriously for 15 years, seeing this kind of growth and acceptance is amazing. Linux used to be ignored, but now it is respected.

Re:It's a nice story...

[rliden]

I think it will be important to watch and see what happens over the next 5 years. One big area, after interoperability, where I think they will have to step up their game will be consistency. There have been a few really cool ideas MS has come up with but after their initial burst of enthusiasm they just let them die with no graceful transition. Their current Live Services are neat, but I'm pretty apprehensive they will continue to support all of those features beyond Hotmail and Calendar or at least provide a good transition from them to newer technologies. This is one of my biggest gripes with close proprietary systems because the user community can't do much if anything at all.

We'll have to see how their commitment to Samba pans out in the longer run. If they see the potential revenue stream go away then I could see them leaving everyone hanging.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Platinum Dragon]

In the case of FOSS, there is no way to bankrupt or buyout the competition. They still try to compete with marketing FUD, but it is obvious that that is only good for trying to slow the growth of FOSS.

That leaves the legal route, and that's what I'm worried may be employed here down the road. I hope the Samba developers obtained a rock-solid agreement allowing them to use the results of the collaboration in the Samba project, now and in the future. I'm concerned that the company may attempt, without the knowledge of the MS developers who probably had a blast doing this, to argue that anything in Samba4 written after this project having to do with AD interoperability is covered by patents relating to AD, or that it descends from MS intellectual property accessed while they were at Redmond, etc. IIRC, one of the Linux NTFS coders had to refrain from working on the functionality for some time after working at Microsoft due to contract stipulations, slowing the development of stable write capability (this was years ago, so I could be way off here).

I can see how this is a possible sign of a culture change at Microsoft (and for that company's sake, I hope the EEE culture is withering away), but I can also see a few ways this could go horribly wrong based on the company's past behaviour. Their future behaviour will determine whether this was a good idea, and that's why I remain skeptical.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Nikker]

Samba won't be production ready for a while yet so server 2008 isn't compatible with anything right now. Right now what they can say is that if you deploy Server 2008 now when Samba 4 comes out of testing you will be able to... replace your 2008 servers with it?

Re:It's a nice story...

[Anonymous Coward]

NO u dont get it.

"FOSS on the other hand has far less to gain, in my opinion, by working together and everything to gain by not making things work together since the main business model of FOSS is support service oriented."

Re:It's a nice story...

[hedrick]

You're thinking of copyright. Patent doesn't have to do with whether MS cooperated in developing the code. It (unconstitutionally) controls the use of ideas, not expression. Using cleanroom techniques don't help. However if MS help allowed more advanced AD concepts to be used in Samba, it might make it more likely that they could be accused of infringing a patent.

Re:It's a nice story...

[mysidia]

Patents cover inventions, not ideas or concepts.

Abstract ideas/concepts aren't subject to any protections

Re:It's a nice story...

[hedrick]

That was originally true, but not in software. Most of us are hoping the Supreme Court will fix it, but I'm not betting on it. We've now got a whole industry that at least thinks it's dependent upon these things. The court system is going to be very wary of removing such an entitlement.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely no way that MS would do that at this stage, or at any later stage where the documentation covering this can be brought out against MS.

They actually had to do this. They've been directly ordered to by the EU antitrust regulators.

If Microsoft do not actively assist interoperability in good faith, or fail to open the protocols they've been ordered to open and relinquish all patents covering the same, or if they later threaten any such interoperability efforts, the EU antitrust regulators will happily eat them for breakfast.

Re:It's a nice story...

[shutdown -p now]

I think the point here is that Microsoft's behavior is being driven by the market. The market is clearly saying that they like a lot of the FOSS solutions. If Microsoft tries to pretend like these solutions does not exist, then they will allow a software ecosystem to develop in which they have no influence. A dominant player simply cannot allow that to happen.

It's nothing new, either. If you poke around various Microsoft websites, you will, for example, see that there are a lot of materials on running PHP on top of Windows/IIS/MSSQL stack, or even Windows/Apache/MSSQL. The reason, naturally, is that PHP is simply too popular to ignore, and directly supporting it on your platform is simply better for business.

Another such example is JDBC type 4 (that is, native Java - no API calls, so it's fully portable to any platform Java itself runs on) driver for MSSQL.

Re:It's a nice story...

[TheRaven64]

What makes you think this is a new policy? It's exactly the same policy that they had with regard to the web circa 1995. Remember Windows 95? Didn't ship with a web browser at all, because Microsoft didn't think that the Internet would catch on. It did include MSN (and, I believe, AOL and Compuserve) clients, but no browser. IE 1.0 was rushed into the Plus Pack, once they realised that people were starting to use this 'web' thing, liked it, and weren't going to switch to MSN.

Over the next couple of years, Microsoft produced the best, and most standards-compliant, web browser. IE 3 was the first browser to support CSS and a lot of people switched because it was better than the alternatives.

Then they started rounding up the rest by integrating IE with Windows Explorer in IE 4. With Windows 98, IE4 was installed by default and everywhere in the OS. The roll-out period for Windows 98 corresponds very closely to IE's jump from 40% to 80% market share. They were still supporting a lot of standards, but now they had a lot of their own additions, like ActiveX, which couldn't be made to run anywhere except Windows without a full Win32 API implementation and started using these with their own web development tools, integrating them with their servers and so on. You could still use another browser, but then you'd get a degraded experience.

This was their policy way back in the DOS days:

1. First deny that there is any demand for something.
2. Then introduce a compatible version and flood the market with it.
3. Add incompatible extensions that people will want to use.
4. Make all of their own products depend on these extensions so people can't use their competitor's products with Microsoft's ones.

Or, in short form: Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Re:It's a nice story...

[MrKaos]

OK, it's an MS-created protocol anyway

I was about to mod you up - but I just had to point SMB out.

Re:It's a nice story...

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS on the other hand has far less to gain, in my opinion, by working together and everything to gain by not making things work together...

But F/OSS is the servant of people, not the other way around. People who use computers want them to interoperate with other computers, regardless of how those other computers are implemented-- be they run by Windows, Mac OS, some other flavor of Unix, or otherwise.

To accord software with teleology or agency is to reify and anthropomorphize it. Software is not Free because the concept of natural right doesn't even apply to it; no moral obligation is owed by anyone to software any more than to a rock. Stallman makes a category error by so asserting in the text of the GNU licenses.

Deliberately omitting interoperability with one's competitors, to the detriment of your users and theirs, is anticompetitive and a play right out of Microsoft's (any every monopolist's) playbook. I'll bet you feel slighted (rightfully) and throw a groupthink-fueled Slashdot-post tantrum whenever confronted with Microsoft's behaving as you advocate, as

[Microsoft] on the other hand has far less to gain, in [its] opinion[-- which is informed by objective analysis accessible to everyone], by working together and everything to gain by not making things work together since the main business model of [Microsoft] is [producing a product and selling it to customers].

I basically agree with the rest of the second paragraph (as well as the first and third), but you also need to realize that the point of FOSS is for software users to write software that meets their requirements when off-the-shelf software both fails and has incentive to continue failing in this way.

It's a trap!

[betterunixthanunix]

We can't repel firepower of that magnitude! Their patent portfolio is operational!

Re:It's a trap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reverse the polarity!

I look forward...

[glitch23]

to being able to implement this at home and at work to word towards replacing Windows Server 2003.

Re:I look forward...

[werfu]

Indeed Samba 4 seems have come along nicely!

Re:I look forward...

[value_added]

to being able to implement this at home and at work to word towards replacing Windows Server 2003.

For home or small office use, this might be an interesting read. It's the slideshow from Kai Blin's Samba ARMed and Ready: Running an Active Directory DC on 2 Watts talk on an embedded Samba4 DC.

Re:I look forward...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama: "I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Except for those being robbed.

Add to end, "Its not robbery to take back whats yours to start with".

Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, I must be missing something obvious here, but I fail to see how this could turn out to be a trap ?

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

Folks interested in saving a buck will start using Samba servers to either completely host or participate in Active Directory domains. The trap or catch will come further down the road when Microsoft patches something that breaks the functionality, at which point Microsoft will simply state that if you wanted something reliable you should have used genuine Windows servers. Don't believe me? The samba project is already rife with examples of this. Didn't we see Samba choke when enterprises tightening up security disabled ntlmv1?

I seriously doubt Samba-based AD servers will be fully functional anyway, just like Samba emulating an NT4 domain was just barely functional. Microsoft helped them figure out how to use the native Microsoft protocols to replicate the AD database instead of having to rely on the semi-functional openldap hack they had been using (actually be be more accurate, MS confirmed and correct their reverse engineering of the protocols).

Being able to replicating the AD database/ldap and form working trusts does not make Samba a good substitute for AD. It simply gives it an ability to co-exist with a real AD infrastructure. GPOs and most of the other desirable features of Active Directory are not implemented in Samba. Big businesses will still use MS boxes to ensure all the features work and its stable, since the cost of the software is not the driving factor.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Anonymous Coward]

The trap or catch will come further down the road when Microsoft patches something that breaks the functionality, at which point Microsoft will simply state that if you wanted something reliable you should have used genuine Windows servers. Don't believe me? The samba project is already rife with examples of this. Didn't we see Samba choke when enterprises tightening up security disabled ntlmv1?

So in essence, the 'trap' here is, when Microsoft decides to stop supporting some aging and long surpassed (version of a) protocol, and make a long-time existing (version of a) protocol the default, that just hasn't been implemented in Samba yet ? Well only the really paranoid would consider calling that a 'trap', all others would call it 'poor interoperability'.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba4/HOWTO#Implementing_Group_Policy_.28GPO.29_into_samba_4_domain says that GPOs are

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Cyberax]

"I seriously doubt Samba-based AD servers will be fully functional anyway, just like Samba emulating an NT4 domain was just barely functional. "

???

Samba3 emulated Windows DC just fine. In fact, it sometimes worked even better than the Windows Server (particularly, in Win9x interoperability).

Samba4 can already be used to replace AD, and it could already replicate its database using stock OpenLDAP replication support.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[DaMattster]

You are incorrect. GPOs have been implemented in Samba 4 and they have been there for a while. Why not try to do some more homework? It is basically or will be capable of completely replacing Windows as a Domain Controller. If you are a Windows centric shop, this is some cost savings but you would still use Windows for hosting other Microsoft technologies like Sharepoint. Samba's goal was always to be a file/print server. Now they are adding the basic and important management features of AD. Samba's work makes it possible to build a mini domain controller in a low power appliance for use in a branch small branch office or something of that nature.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

Samba 3 emulated the archaic NT4 domain and later scabbed on support for Kerberos and emulating a Win2k domain. It never fully implemented all the little features and protocols, but it was essentially functional. I could never get NTLMv2 to work consistently, and it broke several times after Microsoft patches. Management frequently required command-line work. I gave up even trying to get pki or integration with Exchange to work. Forget even trying to get file permissions to work seamlessly, including letting your users set granular file permissions.

From a business perspective, you can either pony up the money to buy the MS product and not worry whether it will work consistently, or you pay it in the long run with higher labor maintaining a Linux based solution that is guaranteed to have some speedbumps down the road..

Yes, Samba4 can emulate an AD server, if you don't mind having to maintain two sets of user and group accounts. Samba4 still requires either usermapping, or managing the linux users and groups separately. It simply lacks the nice seamless integration of AD, and does not fully implement GPOs inheritances, etc.

If you read the article, you'd see they barely got it to the point where a Win2008 server would talk to it enough to join the domain (not just replicate the LDAP database). That's a far cry full full interoperability.

If you want to go Linux simply because you don't like Microsoft, or think you might save money in the long runs (doubt it), then Samba is an option. It works fine for many uses. Just don't expect to have all of the features of a true AD server or guaranteed long term compatibility with Microsoft servers. Personally, I would never try to mix the two in a corp environment as it only takes one issue to kill the entire AD and I wouldn't want my ass being out there taking the blame for introducing the Linux box that was responsible.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[lamapper]

Thank you for pointing that out Cyberax, I have heard of sys admins supporting in excess of 10,000 user and 100,000 users using Samba and not Active Directory. They know AD is a trap to be avoided, but at the same time they have groups with Windows Desktops to support in addition to Unix, Linux and Macintosh desktops. Samba has long been the preferred choice for truly open mixed environments. It always rubs me the wrong way when someone either does not know (possible) or is a shill (more likely) for Microsoft and states things like that. As an intelligent IT Director I would never put in AD in my environment. Of course I would not waste money on IIs licenses either when Linux and Unix servers do more better for less. Total Cost of Ownership will always be lower with Linux. Samba based AD servers work just fine and have for years. To say otherwise is a prime example of FUD!

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[jd2112]

"Come into my parlor" said the spider to the fly.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[aztracker1]

I think a lot of this level of interoperability is to give MS a beach-head into Linux/FOSS shops. Where a given company's servers are already *nix based, but they may want to use a product that requires a Windows Server. This would allow for MS to sell a Windows Server license, they otherwise wouldn't, as without this interoperability it may not even be a consideration.

I've worked at a few places that have both MS and Linux services that interoperate, having Samba4 as an option would have been far better than what was put in place to replicate account management. One of the places is using OpenLDAP as their primary directory structure, and the other is using AD as their primary. Neither is nearly as seamless as allowing for Samba to be the primary, and have Windows servers on the Samba domain.

It's all about MS being able to keep market share as more and more sites move significant portions of their infrastructure to Linux based servers.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Cyberax]

"Yes, Samba4 can emulate an AD server, if you don't mind having to maintain two sets of user and group accounts. Samba4 still requires either usermapping, or managing the linux users and groups separately. "

Wrong! It's certainly possible to use trivial mapping for Unix and Windows groups and accounts. It was possible to do this since the early days of Samba.

Samba4 even supports the full mapping of Windows ACLs which was the main missing feature in Samba3.

"It simply lacks the nice seamless integration of AD, and does not fully implement GPOs inheritances, etc."

Again, wrong. You can actually use Microsoft's tools to manage GPOs in Samba4.

"If you read the article, you'd see they barely got it to the point where a Win2008 server would talk to it enough to join the domain (not just replicate the LDAP database). That's a far cry full full interoperability."

Wrong. Win2008 server not just joined the Samba4 domain as a member. It has established a _trust_ _relationship_ with it. So members of Win2008 domain could now access resources in Samba4 domain with correct cross-authentication. And this is not a small task.

Samba4 is about >this close to the full AD replacement.

The main missing feature is printing, there's no support for it in Samba4. This task is being tackled in the 'Frankie' project which tries to use parts of Samba3 for printing.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[plover]

Didn't we see Samba choke when enterprises tightening up security disabled ntlmv1?

Some changes are required, and will break things. The change from v1 to v2 was absolutely required. If Samba had implemented v2 perfectly, it wouldn't have broke. Perhaps with Microsoft's involvement, the protocols will not break with the next update.

My point is that it wasn't a breaking change, it was a change that revealed a flaw in Samba.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

Samba's work makes it possible to build a mini domain controller in a low power appliance for use in a branch small branch office or something of that nature.

That's fine and dandy. It should work well there. Just don't delude yourself into thinking it will working in a large corporate environment where they need use all of the features of AD, beyond basic authentication. In that environment, integration with other software that uses AD is required. It's kind of ironic that you said "Samba's goal was always to be a file/print server" since printing support is not present in Samba4 yet.

At any rate, Samba4 doesn't appear to even have a stable release yet. I will be curious if it becomes stable enough, I may try it in some of the networks I support. For the most part, I just use it as clients to a real AD domain.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Anonymous Coward]

As an intelligent IT Director I would never put in AD in my environment.

Great! Let us know when you manager to achieve either, OK?

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[CAIMLAS]

Yes, Samba4 can emulate an AD server, if you don't mind having to maintain two sets of user and group accounts. Samba4 still requires either usermapping, or managing the linux users and groups separately. It simply lacks the nice seamless integration of AD, and does not fully implement GPOs inheritances, etc.

What're you talking about? Have you even tried doing those things? I had seamless client authentication, mapping, and granular permission setting via GUI working in Samba 3, almost a full 3 years ago. (No, it wasn't easy, but it's certainly doable.)

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

What're you talking about? Have you even tried doing those things? I had seamless client authentication, mapping, and granular permission setting via GUI working in Samba 3, almost a full 3 years ago. (No, it wasn't easy, but it's certainly doable.)

That is one the reason that you don't see widespread adoption of Samba. It's not easy to get setup. Sure the basic setup isn't too bad, but once you start trying to add it to a domain, run as a domain controller, or get granular file permissions working. I serious doubt you got samba configured as you say without a lot manual file editing, cursing, and trial-n-error until it worked. Compare that to using Microsoft where is is all truly gui-driven and reasonably idiot proof.

Yes, I have tried those things and have it working in various degrees on about 60 Sun, HP, and Linux boxes primarily as an alternative to NFS (now there's a f'd up protocol). I have a mix of clients with underlying accounts and generic user mapping. I also manage almost 3200 Windows boxes. Guess which ones take more time to manage? The Windows boxes are all managed centrally and I rarely have to manage an individual Windows client.

I'm tired of having to constantly go back and dork with Samba because something broke, or the end users can't set file permissions themselves. Better integration with AD might help all of this, but it's still not going to fix the underlying problem of poor integration and lack of centralized management.

I've ripped out a number of Linux boxes because the end users were not using them for anything but hosting file shares - something far easier to do with a Windows box.

I also have my share of Linux enthusiasts nuts that insist they have to have Linux on their desktop or server simply because they don't like Microsoft. If they have a valid reason like running a web server or needing Linux specific software, I let them. If not, I make them toe the company line and use an XP desktop and MS Office so I don't have to deal with everyone else complaining how their documents don't convert from OpenOffice correctly.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[mvdwege]

Management frequently required command-line work.

In other words, you're an MCSE monkey who's lost when he doesn't have a pretty wizard to click on. Harsh? No. The rest of your post bears out my judgment.

Samba4 still requires either usermapping, or managing the linux users and groups separately.

To prove the point: it is trivial to have a Linux system use the LDAP information in AD to manage account information. Integrating with Kerberos for password management is only slightly more difficult. The only thing necessary is to change a few attributes in config files, as Linux systems usually default to RFC2307 for LDAP integration, and AD uses a different schema. But that requires knowing LDAP and editing a few config files. Which you have just admitted is beyond your capabilities.

Mart

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

Sorry no MCSE monkey here. I'm actually Redhat and Cisco certified with a crapload of enterprise experience and I feel perfectly comfortable within a shell and vi thank you. Of course a significant portion of the rest of the system admins out there are more comfortable with a nice easy to understand gui. Something the Linux community (and you by the sarcastic tone of your response) still fail to understand. Simplicity and idiot-proof is essential for market penetration. The moment you force a mid-level system admin into manually editing files and googling for instructions on tweaking ldap.conf you've failed in the mission to make it simple.

You can certainly authenticate against AD using Samba via Kerberos. Since Kerberos is an authentication protocol, just how do you do "password management" (okay, I'm being picky)? My point is that the end user shouldn't have to know the ins and outs of LDAP or be forced to google for a walkthrough. It should be simple and self-explanatory to setup, which it currently is not. It's slowly getting there as Swat evolves and you see some other tools such as smbldap-tools out there.

Funny how my first post is marked 5-interesting, but the last one is marked troll.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[Anonymous Coward]

For the love of all holy, please document setups, problems and solutions on the internet somewhere. Some of the big issues with projects like Samba are that there is a bunch of black magic mojo needed to get it to work.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[mvdwege]

Well, given that you set the bar for difficulty in one sentence for a sysadmin, and in another for an end-user, I am quite sure that you are a troll.

You didn't even give a decent rebuttal to my points. So OK, you're not an MCSE monkey, I will give you that. Instead you're a Slashdot troll. Hardly an improvement, would you say?

Mart

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[natxo asenjo]

If MS 'patches' something that horribly breaks samba, chances are they will break something that horribly breaks win2k3 ;-)

That's a good way of making friends in a lot of places :-)

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[natxo asenjo]

Where I work I frequently use the cli to automate windows servers. You should try it, it may surprise you that it works pretty well.

As to file permissions in samba shares, maybe you should learn about sticky bits for group permissions.

It is also worth noting that ntfs acls are not the same as posix acls; even then, using a management system as cfengine would ensure that the permissions in the shares would be correct without the admins' intervention once the system is setup. No need to login to the server to change a permission. You use group policy for your windows clients and servers, use unix policies for your unix clients and servers then :-) (cfengine, puppet, chef, choose your poison).

As to your mention that the 2008 r2 server merely joined the domain, sorry, you misread the article:

This was the first time that Samba4 had hosted an AD domain that a
Windows DC found sufficiently acceptable to replicate the whole
directory, and be comfortable to set itself up as a peer domain
controller.

So basically, the 2008 r2 server became a domain controller inside a samba 4 domain. It replicated the database. Sure, it is not production ready *yet*. There are sites running it in production though (with some 300 clients, if I recall correctly). It is getting there. Sooner than you think now ;-)

Your point about usermapping is completely irrelevant, by the way. If you install s4 now you just join a winxp to the domain with its adminpak and manipulate users from dsa.msc or the dstools. What's the problem then? Most admins will never know they are talking to a linux domain controller.

Re:Just Don't See How This Could Be A 'Trap'

[fluffy99]

It's already happened. Typically it was a result of incomplete reverse engineering of the protocol. The problem with reverse engineering from scratch is that the developers may have missed some little used and undocumented part of the protocol. A patch on the MS side of the house may have zero effect on the MS clients and servers as they still understand the protocol, but Samba may not. Often it's because Microsoft didn't strictly follow an established standard such as an RFC.

The perfect example is Samba not implementing NTLMv2 because forcing the authentication back to NTLM worked fine until NTLMv1 gets disabled per the security guideline that MS/NSA put out. Naturally people don't blame Microsoft when this happens, they blame Samba because it gets viewed as not really 100% compatible and in a constant state of trying to catch up.

What I find noteworthy here is that while MS isn't helping them rewrite Samba, they are providing additional documentation and debugging support.

A question of trust

[Wowsers]

"Microsoft Windows" and "trust", do those two even go together?

Re:A question of trust

[gbjbaanb]

"Microsoft Windows" and "trust", do those two even go together?

only when joined together with the word 'anti'.

Re:A question of trust

[cryfreedomlove]

Wowsers, if Microsoft is so untrustworthy then why do so many free people around the world make a voluntary choice to purchase their products?

Re:A question of trust

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there is no magic in majorities - anyone who looks around him/her will find that intelligent and informed people are few and far between.

Re:A question of trust

[Platinum Dragon]

Popularity != trustworthiness, particularly regarding a company with a long, well-documented history of anticompetitive practices and protocol-busting behaviour.

I'm amazed so many people are willing to trust MS management's motives so easily. Maybe after they've gone a few years working with outside, even open-source developers, without pulling any technological or legal stunts to later eliminate those projects, will I be prepared to look kindly upon any effort involving MS.

Perhaps I'm just paranoid, or maybe I'm just the result of a company's past poor products and bad behaviour. It's up to that company to regain a semblance of trust from me.

Re:A question of trust

[Zantetsuken]

I was going to ask why MS would be anti-Windows, but then I remembered, Balmer wants to fsking destroy all windows, with which he wages the fight with chairs...

Re:A question of trust

[Anne Thwacks]

why do so many free people around the world make a voluntary choice

Same reason politicians get elected!

Re:A question of trust

[Vancorps]

I have to disagree with your statement about popularity. If the majority of people didn't trust MS they wouldn't keep deploying it. That means that MS hasn't violated the trust of the majority and quite frankly, no one can please everyone.

While I agree that Microsoft shouldn't be trusted I understand that the majority of businesses out there do trust MS and only use basic functionality which in the Windows world simply works. Those of us that try to do unique things run into problems so we like flexible solutions so we ended trying alternatives and become Linux users. I think you would be hard pressed to come up with protocol busting behavior from MS beyond that of IE functionality which at the time all browsers were doing. Remember Netscape 4 and the lovely behavior it gave us? MS was just playing following the leader and since they had a nice install base surprise surprise, they came out on top. NTLM v1 was long considered a bad idea and v2 was clearly an improvement from a security standpoint. Could they have made it more interoperable? Probably but how much should they spend on it? At what point does breaking compatibility make the most sense? Apple does it just fine rather routinely and without backlash but MS seems to get blasted as untrustworthy for the exact same behavior so I say the popularity does determine trustworthiness.

Re:A question of trust

[InMSWeAntitrust]

In Microsoft We Antitrust.

liked the ring of it so much it's my name :D

Re:A question of trust

[DAldredge]

I am equally amazed that so many people trust RMS.

Re:A question of trust

[cryfreedomlove]

Me too. He is a utopian. I don't trust utopians.

Re:A question of trust

[DAldredge]

Utopians don't call for the punishment of those who disagree with them.

Re:A question of trust

[cryfreedomlove]

Utopians don't call for the punishment of those who disagree with them.

Maybe, but then they get impatient and start cracking heads. Do you think Pol Pot got started by hurting people? That's certainly where he ended up.

Re:A question of trust

[tepples]

why do so many free people around the world make a voluntary choice to purchase [Microsoft] products?

People purchase Xbox 360 products because they find Nintendo and Sony products less desirable. In the case of PCs, people make a voluntary choice to buy a computer; a Microsoft product just comes with it because there often aren't any computer stores in town that build home PCs with something other than Windows.

Re:A question of trust

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the case of "the devil you know".

EC mandate?

[VGPowerlord]

When I saw this article, my first thought was this was something Microsoft was doing just to show the EU that they would work on outside "vendors" to get them to work with their protocols.

Vendors is in quotes, as an open source project team really isn't a vendor.

Re:EC mandate?

[raddan]

Vendors is in quotes, as an open source project team really isn't a vendor.

True, but it also gives Microsoft the most bang for their buck, since by working with Samba developers, the information gets out there for everyone to see. If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft requires you to pay for their documentation. Samba's interoperability is documentation in a real sense (and source code is almost always better documentation than something that a technical writer came up with), and this lowers the barrier to getting that information. I think that the EU will view this favorably, which is probably why Microsoft is doing this.

As a side note-- my gut feeling is that nowadays, Microsoft's closed-off protocols are a hindrance to them. At this point in the game, the lock-in is well-known and I think that works against Microsoft with many sysadmins planning new deployments. If, on the other hand, there is a large and open software ecosystem, sysadmins will look on Microsoft products more favorably. E.g., Exchange is quite full-featured as a groupware platform, relatively scalable, and fairly easy to use, but lock-in, cost, and infrastructure requirements are problems. But if someone can set up a Samba4 AD and run Exchange on top of it-- or even better, the other way around-- now we're talking. Microsoft's attitude up to this point, though, has made many people (me included) simply work to ditch the existing Microsoft software we use.

Re:Say it with me, folks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying the Samba folks are trying to EEE Windows server?

How many years has Samba4 been in development now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Three years ? Four ? Longer ? And only just *now* have they been able to get Windows Server to join, trust and replicate to a Samba-based Active Directory ? *And* it took them help from Microsoft in order to do it ? This is not a trap, this is Microsoft taking pitty on the Samba4 project...

How it's different from Mono?

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly?
They are traitors too, IMO.

Re:How it's different from Mono?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree.
Instead of investing in NFS development, they invest in proprietary stack improvements.

Resistance is futile

[clyde_cadiddlehopper]

Prepare to be assimilated. Trust the collective.

Why can't Microsoft be a business too?

[girlintraining]

Guys, you're missing a really big point here: The economics. The server license for Windows 2003 runs from $1,000--3,000. But the Client Access License runs about $40 per client. So the most expensive server license is worth the same as about 75 of these CALs. It's my understanding that if you want to use Linux to connect to a Windows server "legally" you'd have to buy one of those licenses. So even though the Linux server is free, each client still nets them $40 a pop.

But even if all that's wrong, my point is this: The protocols still need a license to be legally used. Microsoft is simply moving away from a revenue stream based on selling software to a revenue stream based on selling licenses.

Re:Why can't Microsoft be a business too?

[Yvan256]

And how will they sell licenses to people who download free software anonymously?

Re:Why can't Microsoft be a business too?

[SilverHatHacker]

Microsoft is simply moving away from a revenue stream based on selling software to a revenue stream based on selling licenses.

Read the EULA's, that's how they've always operated.

Re:Why can't Microsoft be a business too?

[bernywork]

WTF? How can you possibly justify your position?

Lets just a quick "Lets get the facts straight campaign":

A 2003 license is $429.99 US ex tax (Euro pricing, I am sure that the US is cheaper) and that includes 5 CALs. Datacentre runs well and truly above your $3,000 figure, try doubling it if you want Hyper-V.

A 2008 CAL is about $30, but it's not just that you are probably going to want, it's sharepoint and everything else. So really, you just haven't done any research.

Lets run with your understanding about using Linux to connect to Windows, it's wrong.

If you aren't using their software, why would you have to pay for a Client Access License? I am sure you could make a donation to the Samba Foundation, and I am sure that they would appreciate it. Aside from that though, why would the protocols need a license? They have publicly posted the protocols, they got forced to by the EU as part of their anti-trust investigation. This was part of their settlement. They have also posted the protocols for Exchange and a number of other protocols; they had to.

Really, this is the whole point of Jeremy Allison going tot he EU hearings and testifying and everything else, to MAKE Microsoft go through the interoperate with everyone else. Take a look here: http://www.samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_history.html

Disclaimer: I am not an apologist, I am a Linux advocate but I still use a lot of MS products in my day to day business

Re:How many years has Samba4 been in development n

[argent]

I think you mean "this is a sterling example of how poorly documented and understood, even within Microsoft, Windows behavior is".

Microsoft had to dig into Windows kernel source to figure out why Windows didn't like what Samba was doing. How the hell was the Samba team supposed to figure it out from specs?

This is why the OOXML spec is six and a half thousand pages long and even then parts of it still read, simply, "do what Excel does here".

Temperature in hell

[mysidia]

In other news.. the temperature has reached a record low.

Formerly, the lowest temperature was 6000 degrees fahrenheit

But today, the temperature has dropped to 3500 Kelvins, and shows no signs of increasing any time soon.

Also, forecasters indicate a 0.000 000 01% chance of snow this year, a substantial increase from the normal 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 0000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 0000 000 000 000 12% chance in previous years.

Re:Temperature in hell

[Orion Blastar]

and the chances for the Chicago Cubs to win the world series have increased as well.

To all the doubters

[jimicus]

Microsoft have been working with the Samba folks for some time. I suspect this is more to shut the EU up than because they really want to, but if that's their purpose then starting to enforce patents against the Samba team would almost certainly be a most efficient foot-shooting exercise.

If I am being perfectly honest, the only frustration (and I'm sure it's got more to do with a lack of resources than a lack of talent - Samba probably needs about four times as many developers who know the protocol backwards and inside out, problem is most of them probably work for Microsoft) is the glacial speed this is all moving at. AD was introduced with Windows 2000, the Samba team have been working on getting Samba 4 out for years and it's still only alpha code. Frankly, only being able to provide something equivalent to an NT4 domain looked quaint four years ago. Today it's downright embarrassing for anyone claiming that F/OSS is functionally equivalent to Active Directory.

(note to F/OSS advocacy trolls: I am well aware that AD is little more than LDAP/Kerberos under the hood. When you compose your flames, perhaps you would be so good as to explain exactly how one can manage a network full of Windows workstations with the level of control AD policies offer using nothing but F/OSS software which has reached a reasonable level of stability. NT4 policies are a pretty lousy substitute.)

Re:To all the doubters

[gad_zuki!]

>I suspect this is more to shut the EU up than because they really want to

Considering pretty much all IT shops are mixed shops, Im sure every MS rep gets an earful about how about a company with a few linux-based NASs or servers dont integrate with AD. MS is now in the position where it needs to embrace a lot of OSS or their customers will revolt. I suspect the MS of the 90s is behind us. The market is just too diversified and competitive now. Fixing SAMBA is something that should have been done years ago. Hopefully, SAMBA4 will really be headache free.

Re:To all the doubters

[jimicus]

Hopefully, SAMBA4 will really be headache free.

I believe that is the general idea - AIUI the plan is to replicate AD domain controlling/file/printserving with 100% compatibility.

Whether or not it's achievable this side of 2011 I don't know.

Re:To all the doubters

[grcumb]

I am well aware that AD is little more than LDAP/Kerberos under the hood. When you compose your flames, perhaps you would be so good as to explain exactly how one can manage a network full of Windows workstations with the level of control AD policies offer using nothing but F/OSS software which has reached a reasonable level of stability.

As others have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you don't have to. With a proper trust relationship now possible, you can actually use the same MS AD management tools you know so well.

Whatever the motivation for this work, I have to say it makes me feel a little more optimistic. Getting MS software to trust Samba is a decidedly non-trivial accomplishment. The other direction has been possible for some time, but it relegated Samba to a subordinate position. Now, these two implementations can interact as peers.

Bitter experience with closed source software vendors has driven more than a few of us into the arms of FOSS. But virtually all of us work in heterogeneous environments where making MS software work with FOSS continues to frustrate us to this day. The inverse can sometimes be a challenge, but at least the source was always there to diagnose these shortcomings.

Having some degree of assurance that Windows and FOSS (well, Samba, at least) will play nicely together on both sides of the fence is enough to make even die-hard Free Software supporters like me take heart. It's not the end of the war, but it's a sign that peace talks might just work.

... Might, of course, being the operative word in that last sentence.

Re:To all the doubters

[Anonymous Coward]

Symantec Endpoint Protection.

Re:To all the doubters

[Spit]

explain exactly how one can manage a network full of Windows workstations with the level of control AD policies offer using nothing but F/OSS software

The intricacies and problems of managing a Windows desktop LAN are decidedly Windows' own eccentricities; they just don't exist when using other platforms. So please don't point this out as a problem with free software when it's the commitment to expensive and unwieldly non-free software that's the issue.

Smack!!!!

[onyxruby]

A trap? MS spent a week of developer time in cooperation with a Linux team for the express purpose of allowing interoperability. This is a level of cooperation that has previously been unheard of in the Linux community, with well publicized lawsuits filed in an attempt to get a hint of cooperation. Microsoft working with the Linux community at this level has previously only been dreamed of.

All this and some idiot has the audacity to think it might be a trap? For goodness sake, be grateful that it was possible at all. When someone finally does the right thing, give them credit and stop coming across as a whiny ungrateful brat.

Re:Smack!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't say Microsoft doesn't deserve it...

Re:Smack!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems you don't have much knowledge about Microsoft's history. Just because they're hugging OSS right now doesn't mean they're not going to stab them in the back later.

Re:Smack!!!!

[onyxruby]

I have watched a complete lack of microsoft support for open source software for over a decade now. I've seen how people struggled with reverse engineering microsoft's products and struggling even more to do so in a manner that Microsoft can't come back on them for stealing code. I've watched products like Wine for years as they have learned about many undocumented features and bugs the hard way. I was not defending Microsoft, I never said they had a good record. I said they finally started to do the right thing and people should applaud now that they have extended meaningful cooperation to the world beyond windows. In the eyes of someone like Microsoft it comes across as a slap in the face and is the kind of behavior that justifies their lack of cooperation to begin with.

Re:Smack!!!!

[lordandmaker]

MS has put an awful lot of time, effort and money into forging a reputation for generally being The Bad Guy. They're particularly known for their ulterior motives. Given this, I don't think anyone can claim to be surprised when MS do A Good Thing and it's generally viewed as a possible trap. Sure, we can't judge purely on these circumstances, but right now there's not a lot to suggest this is any different from the other times MS has done Good Things.

I hope it's not a trap, I really do want MS to become A Good Guy and for Samba to do AD and all the rest. But there's nothing here to particularly convince me that is the case, so the logical thing to do is assume it's history repeating itself.

Really?

[symbolset]

A whole week? Here'a a nice memory jogger for you:

Only summer comes, and the code isn't ready. It isn't ready in the autumn, either, and this starts to play hell with Sendo's budgets. December rolls round, and according to Sendo, bugfixes that carriers have requested are being refused by Microsoft. Sendo is in a cash crisis, and a call to VCs is spurned. So Sendo asks Microsoft for a further cash injection, which is declined:

"Microsoft refused with the full knowledge that this refusal would push Sendo to insolvency", claims Sendo in the filing.

How did it know? Well, meet Marc Brown, who was by now acting in his capacity as a Sendo board member while continuing his day job as the director of Microsoft's corporate development and strategy group.

In the end Microsoft winds up with all of Sendo's cellular phone intellectual property as the company is liquidated:

"They were not entitled to such information under the terms of the SDMA" - the precursor to the February 2001 agreement that the two inked in the fall of 2000.

In fact, this SDMA turns out to have been Sendo's death warrant. As the company explains:

"Under the SDMA, in the event of a Sendo bankruptcy, Microsoft would obtain an irrevocable, royalty free license to use Sendo's Z100 intellectual property, including rights to make, use, or copy the Sendo Smartphone to create other to create other Smartphones and to, most importantly for Microsoft, sublicense those rights to third parties."

So... two years, 12 million dollars and a board member, and it does appear that it was a trap the whole time. To anybody who remembers IBM's partnership with Microsoft on OS/2 this tale will sound familiar. If you dance with the devil, you will pay his fee.

Re:Really?

[ClosedSource]

So a company received money from MS after negotiating and signing an agreement and it's MS's fault that they are going under because they refuse to give them more money.

As far as IBM and MS are concerned, it was always an uncomfortable alliance and it wasn't as if the larger IBM wasn't used to playing hardball in the big leagues.

Besides, it was clear that IBM didn't didn't consider OS/2 to be a priority because they were very quiet in their promotion of it. There had more ads for the PC jr (with its chicklet keyboard) than OS/2.

Re:Really?

[aztracker1]

Personally, until NT4 came out, I was pretty squarely in the OS/2 camp... Despite it's higher costs for development, and production deployment compared to NT 3.5x. It was by far my preferred Os of choice for BBSing. I think NT4 pretty much changed that in my mind. It wasn't until around 2001-2002 when Linux started to even become an option in my mind, and even then...

I'm actually pretty happy to see the Samba interaction happen, and it probably is a result of the EU antitrust actions, as the Samba team was about the only one still with the EU by the end of the trial.

Re:Really?

[richlv]

did you read selectively on purpose or was that an accident ?

December rolls round, and according to Sendo, bugfixes that carriers have requested are being refused by Microsoft.

Re:Really?

[ClosedSource]

We don't know the whole story there. If MS is not living up to their commitments Sendo should take them to court.

Re:Really?

[symbolset]

Sendo did take them to court. The suit was settled in 2004 for money and Microsoft giving up their ownership stake. In 2005 Sendo finally went under and what's left was bought by Motorola.

This is in no way related to Microsoft's outright buyout of SideKick and Danger, which at last report was a square deal for cash and going swimmingly except for the minor data loss issue, the defections and the total absence of morale since the Pink Slips incident.

So apparently this whole SideKick/Danger thing had gotten completely out of hand even before they lost everyone's data, and people aren't being shy about calling the whole thing dead. The first link even calls doom on Windows Mobile according to Gartner. That's a shame. I really liked WiMo except for the performance, the interface, the reliability, the paucity of third party apps, the retro hardware compatibility, the need for a stylus and the utter lack of any compelling features.

Microsoft really needs to bust into the phone market and now it ain't gonna happen. They're not gaining share anywhere else and their stock is tracking the S&P for the last decade while Apple has grown from nobody to a $170B company. And now they've demonstrated their fickle partnership loyalties to every single player in the phone market and brilliantly demonstrated their inability to execute as their attempts at an own-brand phone erupt into flames. The complete loss of opportunity in the massive growth smartphone market really has to sting. Between this and the field of dreams that is Zune they're completely discredited in the CE space. I really wish I was a furniture salesman in Redmond today.

I had never heard of Roz Ho before today. I think I'll send her flowers.

Re:How many years has Samba4 been in development n

[Anonymous Coward]

"this is a sterling example of how poorly documented and understood, even within Microsoft, Windows behavior is". Microsoft had to dig into Windows kernel source to figure out why Windows didn't like what Samba was doing.

So what you're basically saying here, is that Microsoft is not purposefully evil, but rather incompetent (like many shops) at documenting their source code and software behavior ?
Move along, nothing to see here, news at eleven...

This is good news

[Orion Blastar]

back in 1995 I ran a small business that did Linux installs for companies to replace Windows NT Server systems with Linux plus Samba. We used Slackware Linux and then later Red Hat, but it did Windows file and printer sharing for Windows clients and saved those businesses thousands in Windows Server licenses.

But when Active Directory came out, companies switched back to Windows Server, because Linux and Samba lacked that. Exchange can be done via OpenExchange and use MySQL or PostgreSQL instead of SQL Server.

Linux has to match Windows Server feature by feature in order to compete with it, and be used. Linux might never replace Windows on the desktop, but it can replace Windows on the server as Unix and Linux are designed as server operating systems.

Re:This is good news

[onefriedrice]

... but it can replace Windows on the server as Unix and Linux are designed as server operating systems.

Unix (and by extension Linux) makes for an excellent general purpose operating system. Just because it was developed before desktops and graphical user interfaces doesn't mean that it isn't fully capable for such use any more or less than Windows (which was morphed from DOS). Mac OS X is an example of a very capable desktop operating system built on Unix. A general purpose operating system like Linux is "designed for" whatever people have built on top of it, and desktops running on top of *nix and X11 are not recent occurrences. Nowadays, X11-based desktops are extremely capable, and the development gap between Windows and such desktops has essentially been closed in the minds of many users.

So, let's drop the meme that Linux is designed for servers (thereby implying that it isn't designed for desktops or something). Instead, let's acknowledge that it is a good general purpose operating system which scales well from small devices to servers to desktops, and anything in-between. It just doesn't make sense to continue saying Linux was "designed as a server operating system" when it has really been designed for much more than that.

Re:This is good news

[characterZer0]

Is there an implemented open standard that does what Active Directory does?

Re:This is good news

[Tranzistors]

So then, the parent talks about operating systems, and you talk about a protocol, that is used by a server.
There is nothing in AD that cannot be implemented on Unix systems, and for all I know it is being developed as we write.

Re:This is good news

[DaMattster]

Linux is still lacking the smoothness of Windows 7 if we want to compare desktops. I love open source and am generally an advocate of it but open source really excels in the server arena. I have found Linux on the desktop to be cumbersome, slow, and kludgey. Each time I try it, I am met with frustration - some of this may be me, I admit but I am good at troubleshooting things. It feels like when something goes wrong with Network Manager, it is a bear to diagnose and fix. When I post questions after legitimate googling, I get RTFM. What happens when TFM is written poorly?

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

And it is called Samba?

Re:This is good news

[lamapper]

No its not, stop spreading FUD! You obviously have not purchased a Linux computer from a Linux vendor (i.e ZaReason, System 76) and run Beryl on it. Vista is lame by comparisons. Windows 7 still is lackluster in comparison.

Smooth, lmao, Any Linux distro (there are many) running Beryl on hardware designed to be open (not proprietary) is real smooth. Looks more professional also. Hey another plus, all that extra memory that Vista (and Windows 7 is just Vista +) operating system eats up; is left available for the applications running on the desktop.

Hint to all: Purchase your hardware from a vendor that knows and builds Linux; you can always run Windows if you want too and down the road when Microsoft stops supporting your operating system and/or Windows applications; you are 100% sure that that hardware will run the next version of Linux; and the next; and the next.

The truth is you do not need Windows or Microsoft anymore, if you want to use them fine, but make sure your hardware is 100% Linux compatible and sleep well at night!

Re:This is good news

[dickens]

..Windows (which was morphed from DOS).

or rather imitated DOS with tech from VMS (which they've admittedly taken to undreamed-of heights)

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

LDAP / Kerberos. The services built off of it (RHDS for one)

AD is just a recreation of LDAP with kerberos and a DNS implementation.

Re:This is good news

[__aaqvdr516]

Beryl = string

you = cat

You probably get endless hours of entertainment wiggling your windows and rotating your workspace on the cube don't you?

I built my system. It's run WinXP, Vista, Win7, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Suse, and more. Default install of Win7/Vista looks more professional. Beryl is just candy. With some UI mods, any *nix can look as good if not better than Vista/Win7, but that would be purely an individual taste.

TBH I don't care much about RAM utilization. Most people have enough that they'd be very hard pressed to get to a point where that even matters.

I'm surprised that you didn't talk about system function calls though. Due to the strict rules governing Linux development, code execution is much more streamlined than on Windows. This of course would lead to improved loading/running of code. http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/06/1713214 Seems like they moved the chart unfortunately but you can feel free to track it down if you're interested.

I think I had a point to make when I started writing this reply, but my son is running around the house screaming his head off and now I've got a headache. So to sum it all up: Even my wife can use Linux, but I've had to put her back on XP because some the things she needed to do weren't supported currently in Linux. I'm just going to have to wait until next year, I've heard it's supposed to belong to Linux.

Re:This is good news

[cbhacking]

Windows (in the modern sense) has nothing at all to do with DOS aside from including a 16-bit virtualization layer (in the 32-bit versions) and R/W support for its filesystem (not that you'll see many FAT16 volumes these days).

Windows, or more correctly NT, was designed from the ground up to be 32-bit, multi-user, preemptive multitasking, support multiple APIs and/or ABIs (DOS, Win16, Win32, OS/2, and POSIX), be portable (the DOS-based Windows versions used assembly heavily, which made them fast and lightweight, but prone to bugs and impossible to port; NT is almost entirely C and has been ported to several completely different architectures), and be suitable for servers and workstations (not, initially, home computers). The lead designer of NT (and author of much of its kernel), Dave Cutler, used to be one of the leaders on VAX/VMS and other projects by DEC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Cutler

Claiming that Windows was "morphed from DOS" indicates either a stunning lack of knowledge about the modern software world (the last Windows version in any way based on DOS was ME, which was quickly replaced with the NT-based 2000 and XP), or that you are simply a troll.

Re:This is good news

[fluffy99]

AD is just a recreation of LDAP with kerberos and a DNS implementation.

If only it were that simple, Samba would have managed a working clone by now. It's true that AD is basically built on a modified LDAP implementation and uses kerberos, but it really is more than that.

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, I have an Archlinux box, runs swimmingly even in VirtualBox, that install has a full-blown KDE4+Compiz-Fusion running on a eee900, the celeron ones and it was faster than XP on that box, I have Windows 7 installed on a reasonable PC, it was even Vista-ready (really so, not a shit 700$ Pentium 4 from Dell)... And it's still crawling.

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

The earliest version of windows I can remember using is 2.0. It was a program that ran on top of dos, and if I were to think of something it looked and behaved like I would say gem desktop, not a command shell. Morphed from DOS = wtf?

Re:This is good news

[tepples]

Instead, let's acknowledge that it is a good general purpose operating system which scales well from small devices to servers to desktops, and anything in-between.

Sure, it scales from small devices to servers, but the in-between is full of hardware manufacturers who decline to help developers of Linux, CUPS, SANE, etc. build and maintain drivers.

Re:This is good news

[udippel]

As an only-used-FOSS-for-the-last-10-years person, I am unhappy to disappoint you. Was playing with W7, Build 7600(?) today; and not in a Microsoft shop, and found it 'smoother' than my best install of you-name-it FOSS. The highlighting was very clear, the system easy to be used, the task list showing all the previews, and all the previews of Firefox tabs above the icon, and everything came up and disappeared in an 'elegant' manner. It felt 'effortless'; while my similar exploration of Vista, of two years ago, went horribly wrong.
If my experience was to predict anything about the success, W7 will be a huge success, like Vista was a huge failure.
And while I like and actually use compiz, it doesn't make up for the smoothness that I experienced today.

No, I am surely not a convert. But one should give credit, where credit is due.

Re:This is good news

[Arker]

Actually it's not nearly as far off as you say. Yes, the original NT core was unrelated to DOS, it's true. But the entire superstructure and ecosystem that went around that core was derived from the DOS world, and in addition the NT kernel over successive releases was compromised for compatibility (with the old dos world of course) and for performance.

Re:This is good news

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth noting that early NT editions shipped with alot more "varied" features, such as different API's (OS/2 and POSIX in addition to Win32), and were available for more chipsets then just x86. The primary reason these subcomponents, that showcased the flexibility of NT, have fallen away is simply that it wasn't often used, and therefore made little sense economically. Reading "Inside Windows NT" (or any of the later additions, the latest is called "Windows Internals 5") is a great showcase for the technical sophistication of the NT design.

people think "PC == Windows"

[ChipMonk]

Even the Mac vs. Windows commercials, they start out "Hi, I'm a Mac," "And I'm a PC." Microsoft has very skillfully indoctrinated the PC-buying public in the USA to believe that Microsoft operating systems are the only thing that will run on an x86-based, non-Macintosh desktop computer.

"Choice" is anathema to Microsoft. Gates, Ballmer, Mundie, et alia want Windows on every PC in the world, and they are willing to use every means, legal or otherwise, to convince people (especially clueless executives) that there is no other system for a PC. In this, they were very successful for a long time. And, face it, a lot of people tolerate Windows in order to have computers on their desks, but how many actually like it?

Even if Microsoft were to admit openly that PC's can run other OS's, the sheer inertia Windows has today is going to take a while to overcome.

Re:people think "PC == Windows"

[Anonymous Coward]

More than that, free desktops have been able to compete with windows for a little under a decade now. The main advantage of Windows is not the product quality of MS (which I admit is acceptable, except when they put artificial locks in it).

The main advantage of Windows is support from third parties, software and hardware. It is not that Windows supports all hardware, but that all hardware supports Windows. Ditto for software. Linux now supports most hardware, often even when the hardware maker didn't even produce a Linux driver.

The jump from a Windows dominated world to a Linux dominated world only depends on inertia now. Si I can see why MS is worried and cooperating now.

How ever the way they have acted recently about patents indicates me that they *still* want to fight the legal route, MS isn't ready to compete on features yet.

Re:people think "PC == Windows"

[Sponge Bath]

"Choice" is anathema to Microsoft.

Steve Jobs to the rescue! You can get your Macbook Pro in any color, as long as it's silver.

Re:people think "PC == Windows"

[shutdown -p now]

Even the Mac vs. Windows commercials, they start out "Hi, I'm a Mac," "And I'm a PC." Microsoft has very skillfully indoctrinated the PC-buying public in the USA to believe that Microsoft operating systems are the only thing that will run on an x86-based, non-Macintosh desktop computer.

You give a very strange example, considering it's an Apple ad. So far as I can tell, it's rather Apple indoctrinating public to believe that Macs are not "PC", hence justifying the higher price for the logo, as well as all their hardware/software tie-in practices, and clearly separating the closed Mac ecosystem from everything else.

Re:How many years has Samba4 been in development n

[Anonymous Coward]

Get back to us once you've personally attempted to reverse engineer and implement an undocumented and proprietary protocol.

repeat after me....

[deckardt]

[V] Embrace
[V] Extend
[ ] Extinguish



Tonight pinky, we try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD

Re:repeat after me....

[mok000]

Tonight pinky, we try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD

dooooohhh, isn't that what we try to do every night, Brain?

EU, Antitrust

[Anonymous Coward]

Having somesort of competition on this part of the Windows services range is a good thing, the EU have fined MS for antitrust issues before. This is basically a CYA action from MS. Invest some time into this or pay a multimillion euro fine for anti competative behavior...

Thank you Microsoft.

[Jason Pollock]

You guys didn't have to provide them with interoperability testing and access to developers.

Thanks.

Re:How many years has Samba4 been in development n

[argent]

So what you're basically saying here, is that Microsoft is not purposefully evil, but rather incompetent (like many shops) at documenting their source code and software behavior ?

What I'm saying is that this is not evidence of *Samba* being incompetent.

However.

You can't rule out both.

I have in the past said that I wouldn't mind Microsoft being the "Evil Empire" if only they were a *competent* Evil Empire.

Not a Trap At All

[DaMattster]

The EU forced open much of the Microsoft protocols in their recent ruling. They forced Microsoft to document everything allowing Samba to do its work with much greater ease then simply trying to reverse engineer. Microsoft did not have to provide material assistance but chose to do so even though the documentation of the protocols met the requirements of the EU ruling. And, while other Slashdotters have noted, it is moving at a glacial pace but still has all the latest active directory features and once Samba 4 exits alpha, it will be really quite a quality product and ahead of its time. No doubt, Redmond might also be curious about Samba 4. They might also see some of the innovations by this small group and get some new ideas. It is an informational exchange.

And the reality..

[Seth Kriticos]

See, I don't like MS and have my itch with Samba for that reason, but most people that like MS are accustomed to the clicky-pointy interface for AD and will have a hard time to accept Samba just because it is too cryptic.

Or differently speaking, bigger organizations (except govt.) will take this new possibility into account because of the cost reduction potential (they only need a few very bright people to keep this running for a very big, otherwise license expensive infrastructure).

For middle class organizations this won't change much. They swim or sink with the rest of the world.

Re:And the reality..

[Shados]

For large organizations, that obviously makes it easy to set up horizontal-scaling Samba installs for anything that needs more hardware than it does software. With commercial software, that ends up far too expensive, so the time the unix sysadmins will be spending on setting this up will be worthwhile (and easily pushed to thousands of machines if needed, at no additional cost beyond the hardware and maintenance...which is most of the money, but still a significant saving).

For small and medium size companies, there's still a blooming bit of industry that this type of event enable: appliance style computers. This makes it possible to have a commercial, AD-like appliance in a router-style form factor, without the OEM needing to add the Windows premium. Thats how high end routers work, and this makes it easier than ever to do it for a domain. It existed already, but this will just push it further into the mainstream.

Most people are intelligent

[cryfreedomlove]

Because there is no magic in majorities - anyone who looks around him/her will find that intelligent and informed people are few and far between.

I find that most people are intelligent. The differences come in what they are passionate about. Most folks are very well informed on the topics they are most passionate about. Maybe you are a passionate software developer. That has led to informed opinions about operating systems. Good for you. Maybe I'm passionate about raising my children and making music with my friends. Please don't think I'm an idiot if I just don't get excited about dumping windows. In turn, I won't think you are an idiot if you can't play the guitar. Respecting this diversity will make the world a safer place with a greater respect for social justice.

More like Microsoft Starting backfires.

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, to pre-burn all the Linux growth so when the Supreme Court blaze comes in that it doesn't matter because Samba4 will be dejure property of Microsoft that would need to be licensed. Machine code is where the patents bask in protection while source code is the copyright in question; source code is nothing more than plain diction from a teacher, like Cobol spoke into the clerk to compile and run the genera through a 3-ring binder each page enumerated.

Somewhere in time people have forgotten the different between machine-readable Code to people-generated Style. Am I saying that right? Thanks for the backfeed.

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[lamapper]

Publicly recanting the Halloween Documents, and particularly "embrace, extend, and extinguish" would be a start, if only a start.

Institute a 7 year clock.

Watch Microsoft actions over a seven year period, only start purchasing their products again if their actions over the last seven years show that they have honestly changed.

Anytime they spread FUD or Embrace or Extend or Extinguish or do anything, any action, to harm open source, FOSS and/or Linux RESTART THE CLOCK!

Your base your purchase decision based on their business decisions and actions, period. Let me say that again, based on ACTIONS, not WORDS or marketing FUD. Their words often lie, history is rife with examples. To not acknowledge this reveals you to be either a shill, working for Microsoft or ignorant of the factual history. Do not be part of the problem. Their actions often take 2 or 3 years before they can extinguish, thus a longer period is smart.

The added plus side is that if they KNOW that a business decision is going to cost them 7 years business from a significant segment of the market (they will try to tell you that it is not a significant part of the market, do not buy into that FUD) ; they are more likely to NOT be stupid.

All one has to do is look at the statistics in the browser wars; operating system wars, office wars, server wars, active directory wars, etc... to see that they win a battle here or there but they are slowly, very slowly losing the war. (It is not lost on the author that they started these wars, not anyone else) Do not let them spread more FUD that the numbers of users upset with their past business practices is small. Not now, not thanks to Vista and the Economic downturn.

Microsoft new campaign, "make web, not war", too funny. Is that the pot calling the kettle black or what!

I am waiting 7 years before I purchase again. If they behave badly I will reset the clock from that day. I reset the clock this month and will probably reset it again next month. Thats okay with me, its not like I need their products anyway there are ample options in every vertical. My guess is they will not be able to change their behavior, innovate and entice me to purchase. Only time will tell. It is up to them now, give me 7 years of good behavior and we can talk! Regardless they will not be able to harm me or the businesses for which I make purchasing decisions any more.

Keep it simple!

On a positive note, I am guaranteed not to waste another dollar on vendor lock-in and proprietary BS. That makes me smile...all the way to the bank. My TCO (total cost of ownership) is already the cost of Vista and Windows 7 cheaper per desktop than any Windows user that bought into Vista. (I have multiple desktops and servers at home)

Why are you Vista users putting up with this crap, give Beryl a try, you will not want to go back. They should have given a cheap ($20 - $30) upgrade or free upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Yet another mistake and any Vista user is right to be upset over it. Makes Microsoft look desperate to me.

On full disclosure, I saw a $300 netbook that triple boots (Macintosh, Windows and Linux) so I might waste $300 for a testing platform only. While I use Microsoft desktops at various companies when I have no other options; at home I have been free of Windows for over two years now. Linux is a smarter development platform also, as you can develop for all platforms, even Windows. The converse is often NOT true. Helps you to avoid functionality that is dependent on Windows operating systems as well. Very smart to avoid those traps.

Why 7 years, glad you asked? They have been doing what they do, harming alternatives for well over two decades, 20 years plus, 7 years seems like enough time to know if they have changed or not. (I was in IT before DOS 1.0; I have lived it first hand. I do not need anyone to verify what I have experienced.)

For newer

Samba geeks kicked MS lawyers ass in court.

[Anonymous Coward]

>then starting to enforce patents against the Samba team would almost certainly be a most >efficient foot-shooting exercise.

i dont think MS wants another ass kicking in court from these guys
Samba leaders Allison, Tridge, Carlo the italian lawyer and George and the other guy from FSFE are the ones who kicked the Microsoft lawyers ass in court in that famous case.

Allison can code and lawyerize better than MS can lawyerize.

I think kids would say that, "Brad Smith is Jeremy Allison's bitch."

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[Bigjeff5]

Your 7 year plan is a little odd, and you used far, far too many words to describe it, but ok. Your sentiment of caution at least is rational.

However, I have a few beefs with a few of your assumptions.

First off, that your total cost of ownership is lower. That is certainly true if your time is worth nothing to you. However, my time is worth a lot more than nothing to me, so the $50 Microsoft tax for a windows box is blown away in just the setup time for Linux. Setting aside the shenanigans and problems at launch (I honestly don't know why anybody buys a brand new MS operating system at launch, seriously), Vista requires less maintenance than XP did, and XP required less maintenance than any desktop Linux distro I've ever used. Now, you may enjoy messing with config files and tweaking your system and so don't see that as part of your TCO, but I certainly don't enjoy it, and every hour I spend tweaking something is an hour I'm wasting, and my time is worth something to me. Most people see things from my point of view instead of yours (though I think your average Linux geek would agree with you).

Second, unless they have split again Beryl has been Compiz for a few years now. It is also still not a stable program, and is a massive resource hog after years of development. While it has a lot more features, most of them are nothing more than little toys and don't actually do anything, while the dressing in Vista/Win7 is designed to help you out. The only thing I miss really in Vista is the desktop cube, I loved that thing. Anyway it's hardly a good comparison to the stable window manager in Vista/Win7, half the time Compiz doesn't load correctly, and you need to turn it off any time you want to use the majority of your system's resources. Not cool.

As for hardware vendors, frankly, the Linux community is still too small to matter. They'll write drivers for Windows and Mac because that gets them 99% of the market. The effort to get that last 1% would likely cost them more than they'd gain. They certainly aren't going to give you their firmware source code, regardless of how much you think they should. If you could find a way to utilize Mac drivers (they aught to be a lot closer than Windows drivers) you'd be golden, as Macs are gaining market share fast.

Anyway, more power to ya man, but I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[Mathinker]

> First off, that your total cost of ownership is lower. That is certainly true if your time is worth nothing to you. ...

His post mentions that he is a software developer. The cost of buying gobs of proprietary development (and other) software is large compared to even a few hours of his time (unless he's really highly paid, of course).

And I think it's ingenuous for you to assume that Windows requires a lot less maintenance and customization than a major Linux distro. This hasn't been my experience. Or are you factoring in the "I will get this to work no matter how long it takes" geek stubbornness which sometimes hits me when I don't succeed in doing something easily, like printing from Linux to a printer shared from Windows? I will concede to you that Linux is much more of a "trap" than Windows in this way, because I would never even consider wasting time trying to fix Windows.

If the work is GPL3'd, we're OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Since Microsoft did, through the SAMBA team make that work whether it gets patented or not, available under the GPL.

It CAN still stuff up the *BSD folks because they don't get ANY patent protection from their choice of license and so can get buttfucked by this.

Well that theme went off in the bushes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, HOW and WHEN has RMS said that someone should be punished because they don't believe in the FOSS philosophy?

You just threw that one out there hoping some of the BADLY AIMED shit will stick to something.

Yup. Some dumbass is trying to FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual sumdumass is fudding their way through this. They loathe the GPL and since it got patent protection from commercial hijacking, he's gone from hating GPL2 to loving it and hating v3 instead.

Bingo

[davide marney]

Everyone is so worried about the MS of 10 years ago that I think they're missing the dynamic now.

Spot-on. Microsoft is undergoing some radical changes from within, but one thing they won't change is their aggressive competitiveness. Anyone who still thinks that MS is still banking on dominating the desktop hasn't been paying attention. MS is moving very aggressively into the application server space (Sharepoint, Dynamics), the cloud (Live, Azure, Bing), Rich client (Silverlight), and non-desk-bound computing (Surface, Courier). They have a large pile of cash, they have been busily hiring some the best engineering talent in the business, and they are not going to let their franchise slip away to the likes of Google, Apple, Sun, or Adobe.

ASUS: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

[tepples]

Are you saying the Samba folks are trying to EEE Windows server?

I'm typing this on an Eee PC connected to a Windows server through Samba, you insensitive clod!

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[Bigjeff5]

My post is from my own personal experience. I have been using Windows since win 3.11 (which I usually dropped out of into DOS), and I have been playing with Linux off and on since then. I switched to Linux on my laptop when I had issues with Vista at launch that, frankly, pissed me off. I used that for about a year - year and a half and recently switched back to Vista about six months ago.

So my post comes from recent experience with Linux and Vista both, it's not an assumption that Windows requires a lot less maintenance for me, it's personal experience that tells me that. There is the caveat of Windows launches, which are still as horrible as they have ever been. We'll see with Win7.

Or are you factoring in the "I will get this to work no matter how long it takes" geek stubbornness which sometimes hits me when I don't succeed in doing something easily, like printing from Linux to a printer shared from Windows?

That's not quite the time sink I am talking about. I fought issues with various programs wrecking my sound in Linux, a problem I have never even heard of with Windows. Compatibility with various vendors though is a compatibility problem, and you can see those in other examples in Windows just the same. You won't see a printer problem, but it will be something else. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when things go wrong they tend to require much tweaking and editing and messing with some such program but not before you do X in this other program, etc. It's a pain in the ass. In Windows, most problems can be fixed with a reboot (yeah, it's annoying, but it's easy). Application problems you just run the repair. And if you really broke things bad (almost all Windows problems these days are user caused) you just roll the whole system back to before you installed that piece of crapware or whatever.

It doesn't really require much technical knowledge until things are really bad. Linux, on the other hand, if things are not quite the way you want them, half the time you'll need to manually edit a config file instead of having an option to adjust it in the program itself. It sucks.

But some people enjoy that, and more power to them. It's just for me it is a complete waste of time, and most of the world seems to agree with me.

Also recognize this ONLY applies to desktops - Windows Server is awesome but not an option for a low budget operation (and not the best choice in a number of cases), and particularly with Samba v4 whenever it comes out there will be pretty much nothing a Windows Server can do that a Linux server can't do. The Windows Server will be easier to set up though ;).

This one too

[InvisiBill]

Hell freezes over annually.

Hell, MI does as well.

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[Mathinker]

I switched to Linux on my laptop when I had issues with Vista at launch that, frankly, pissed me off. I used that for about a year - year and a half and recently switched back to Vista about six months ago.

Yes, I admit that when I called you out, I was comparing Linux to Windows (XP) on desktop systems. I admit that Linux on (randomly chosen) laptops is probably more of a pain than Windows, especially since the installed Windows is customized to the hardware, which itself is designed to work with Windows and only possibly with Linux.

I'm talking about when things go wrong they tend to require much tweaking and editing and messing with some such program but not before you do X in this other program, etc. It's a pain in the ass. In Windows, most problems can be fixed with a reboot (yeah, it's annoying, but it's easy). Application problems you just run the repair. And if you really broke things bad (almost all Windows problems these days are user caused) you just roll the whole system back to before you installed that piece of crapware or whatever.

I've had quite a few problems that "X doesn't work" in Linux, but I sometimes just live with it, as opposed to breaking my head trying to fix things which sometimes just fix themselves upon the next major update of the distro.

It doesn't really require much technical knowledge until things are really bad. Linux, on the other hand, if things are not quite the way you want them, half the time you'll need to manually edit a config file instead of having an option to adjust it in the program itself. It sucks.

When "things are not quite the way I want them" in Windows, it is usually a significant investment of effort to discover how to "fix" them, in my experience. Like when I decided that double-clicking on "My Computer" should cause Windows to "explore" rather than "open". That experience, while teaching me a lot about Windows internals and the registry, also showed me that there are two sides to most coins.

Sorry

[Mathinker]

Sorry about the formatting of my reply, I wrote it in a hurry and I forgot to close and reopen all of the quotes from your post, so my comments are hard to separate out. (and it didn't help that "preview" has been relatively broken for me here on Slashdot for a while, don't know why)...

Re:It's a nice story... Institute a 7 YEAR CLOCK

[lamapper]

7 year CLOCK restart is simple, following the KISS principle. If a company, in this case Microsoft, does anything in a customer no service manner to anyone, not just me, I will reset the clock. Until I see that many years of that company being a decent corporate citizen, I will re frame from doing business with them. The 7 year clock is because they have been abusing their monopoly power for more than 10 years, over 20 years in my personal experience. For newer companies, a 3 year clock would suffice. Anything less than 3 years does not allow for enough time to see if a company has changed based solely on their ACTIONS. Nothing else matters, but their actions.

Over a three year period, an innovative company will have either 9 (3 releases per year) or 12 major releases of their product (software/hardware/both). If they are practicing Agile/SCRUM with a livable, sustainable velocity (this is absolutely critical, otherwise your company becomes a miserable place to work and turnover will eventually impact their product quality), than they might actually have more than that number of releases. The point is not the number of releases, but a track record where their actions can be measured with 100% accuracy.

Mathinker pretty much covered much of what I would have said. Thanks Mathinker. However I still see some of your comments as misrepresenting Linux and spreading FUD. For instance.

Third one first, as it is the most critical to Linux success without hassles:

As for hardware vendors, frankly, the Linux community is still too small to matter...The effort to get that last 1%....

Why people throw out that the desktop market is only 1% Linux, its been larger than that for years. This is more of the same ole FUD! The only reason it is not even larger is that Microsoft has the big box stores where most noobs shop pretty well locked up. This is where the Linux hardware vendors, who know what not to put in a PC, are especially critical. It is not surprising that those same computers, with proprietary hardware (i.e. designed not to work with Linux) give fits to users when they attempt to install Linux.

Note to all: run Linux from Disk (assuming your computer has a CD/DVD) first. Verify everything works: Video, Audio, USB, Keyboard, Mouse, WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet NIC, etc... Anything that you use every day, make sure it will work with that hardware and that version of Linux or DO NOT INSTALL LINUX. This will avoid most FUD issues related to Linux not working on your proprietary hardware. Never forget, if you are not purchasing from a Linux Vendor (I do not include Dell among them, they only barely qualifies; check out ZaReason or System 76. I always emphasize ZaReason because I have met the family who runs the company and I know first hand that they care. Heck their daughter (under 10 I believe) has no problems with Linux or Windows. She told me she prefers Linux, its all about what you get use to.)

If you purchase hardware with Linux in mind, even if you want to run Windows, you have the best of all worlds. You can still run Windows, if you want. And when Microsoft end of lifes that version of Windows, and eventually they will. No one can debate that fact, eventually they are going to drop support for the version of Windows that you are running on that PC. At that point and time you can use this now older PC for something useful, anything. Since it was built and purchased running Linux, you know it will run Linux 10 years form now. That too is fact. I currently run Linux with a slow processor and 128MB of RAM. I prefer a minimum of 512MB of RAM, even better if there is at least 1 GB of RAM. Future Linux computers will have either 2 GB or 4 GB of RAM as I want to manipulate high definition video/audio using the H.264 codec. While doable with Linux and 2 GB, probably easier with 4 GB of RAM. With Linux ONLY, the extra memory will not be used up by the operating system (as it is with Windows

Worst case

[nurb432]

Worst case is we have to yank the code for AD and start over. Its not like the entire system has to be scrapped, or even most of SMB..

If this gives us AD integration, i think its worth the slight risk.

Apple

[fuzzywig]

Obviously Microsoft aren't doing this just to torpedo OSS down the road, people seem to be forgetting that Apple rely on Samba to get OSX to interact with AD environments. (as a windows admin with multiple platforms to worry about, my personal take on this is that it's all good news, ymmv)

In Domain?

[Anonymous Coward]

This means a station with Linux can join in a domain Windows Server?

Eder Pardeiro
Brazil