Samba: Less Important Because Windows Is Less Important 162
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes "Interview Bruce Byfield did with me after the Samba 4.0 release. Discusses interactions with Microsoft, the future of the code and project, and many other things."
Re:First posting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First posting? (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Samba at home for my media file shares, and probably still would have even if Windows interoperability wasn't an issue, it's widely supported by most non-Windows OSes (except iOS, the first OS where you need to pay to add on a Samba client. Progress!)
Re:First posting? (Score:5, Insightful)
And it still probably won't come with an offer for source code (sigh :-).
Jeremy.
Importance not related to Windows (Score:4, Insightful)
One trend is the growing use of virtual disks in VMs to provide storage. This is just stupidity. Shared files server users far better than virtual disks do. Files are not created for OSs, they are a mechanism for sharing information between users.
The other trend is away from NAS and towards object storage. That is a good trend, but not one that will make NAS protocols obsolete anytime soon.
Re:First posting? (Score:5, Insightful)
Samba is absolutely still important. We just take SAMBA for granted now more than ever because it is pre-installed everywhere in almost every appliance. For example buy a $20 internet 'router' from Best Buy that can share a connected USB drive over a LAN and it probably uses SAMBA for functionality.
Agreed.
Samba is not seen as a big issue these days because it works so incredibly well. Software only gets your attention when it fails.
As for Windows not being as important, that simply is not the case in corporate america. In fact the only reason Linux exists in the corporate world is because of Samba. Any growth if Linux in the server or workstation role is due principally to Samba, and without it there would be virtually zero Linux adaptation in the workplace. Businesses are natural mono-cultures when it comes to computing systems.
Re:Comedy silver (Score:5, Insightful)
If for some reason all Windows system die tomorrow,
Other than that 800 pound gorilla in the room, there is nobody else around....
Hand waiving away 90% of the desktop OS users [wikipedia.org] to make a point about samba being less important seems reaching at best.
I think you could safely make the if for some reason Samba dies tomorrow, Linux in the workplace gets shoveled into the same grave.
Re:First posting? (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you get into bigger problems and more demanding SLAs, the prevalance of Windows declines rather quickly.