RE: Samba (was: OS-X vs. Windows)

In one of the interviews I read with the Samba developers, that say that the
Samba code is, in a word, nasty. This is not the Samba team's fault
necessarily, but is rather a combination of reverse-engineering the
Microsoft protocol and "kludges" to make it work bug-for-bug compatible. It
seems to me that the Samba team and IBM are doing the same work twice. To my
knowledge, the protocol is undocumented outside Microsoft.

Not to slam the IBM developers in any way, but I'm amazed that IBM got SMB
working on the AS/400 as quickly as it did. IIRC, the Samba team has been
working on theirs since 93-94. If Samba works with OS/2, then I believe IBM
should give serious thought to helping port Samba to the AS/400.

Loyd

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Lang [mailto:aalang@rutgersinsurance.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 9:48 AM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Samba (was: OS-X vs. Windows)


That's the beauty of Open Source.  Nothing is stopping you.  And if a decent
go is made of it, IBM may contribute and use it to replace Netserver and
then you got them helping out the Samba crew also (or as it sounds, Samba
helping them :P).

The odd thing is, is that IBM hasn't looked at teh Samba code to see how
they are handling the protocol and adapted their software accordingly.

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
http://www.rutgersinsurance.com