[Leaplist] MS and Novel join forces

[Bryan J. Smith]

ray wrote:
> Hmm thanks for that link.  So is MS going to come back to the SMB table
> and work with the SMB group

By SMB do you mean Server Message Block (SMB) or Small and Medium
Business (SMB)?

> to help linux talk with NTFS?

SMB and NTFS are two entirely different things.

SMB is well documented and Samba implements it most excellently.  But
here are many other aspects outside of SMB (some of which Samba
provides, some of which it does not, or merely works with).  SMB has
_nothing_ to do with NTFS.

NTFS is _not_ well understood by Microsoft itself, and I'd argue the
LDM-NTFS project for Linux actually understands it _better_ than
Microsoft.  E.g., it is _not_ safe for Windows systems to write to
NTFS filesystems it did not create (Windows NT5.1 aka XP/2003 will
actually prevent such mounts on Basic disks to prevent corruption),
whereas the NTFS-3G "FUSE" driver is pretty damn good.  Linux also has
a read-only driver whereas Microsoft does not.

I deal with Microsoft people all-the-time and they don't know the
first thing about handling NTFS at all with their own OS.  That's what
CarioFS, then WinFS, now still _nothing_ was supposed to handle (long
story).  If the NTFS-3G "FUSE" driver continues to have success in
further development, then I think Microsoft is really showing it's
issues.

> In all on the cover it appears like a GREAT advancement for Linux.

I don't understand this at all.  Nothing has really changed, other
than some cross-licensing and partnership (e.g., OEM/resell) aspects
-- except for a few IP details.  And some IP details won't be in GPL
software, just like some aspects of the Sun deal.  I.e., eDirectory
and Sun One benefit, but not OpenLDAP or FDS/RHDS (fka NsDS).

Furthermore, if you think Microsoft is going to all-of-the-sudden give
away code to ADS operations, you're greatly mistaken.  Furthermore,
Samba on its own does _not_ replace ADS, and will never likely will.
It takes a combined development effort beyond just reverse engineering
to deliver such an infrastructure.

I've been really dealing with a lot of ISC stuff lately and I've about
had it.  Yes, I know about alternatives out there, but most of them
only address Internet services, not large, private enterprise
networks.  Even PowerDNS is just an authoritative/forwarding
framework, and not a complete solution.

> Now i noticed that it is just for SuSe enterprise and saw no mention of
> OpenSuSe.  What are the differences between OpenSuSe and SuSe
> enterprise so far as what is in the distros and what can be done with them
> with hacking?

The difference between SLES and SL/OS is about the same as RHEL and
FC/FP today, licensing and distribution-wise.  I've really been
impressed with what Novell has done.

> Can you make OpenSuSe work the same way and does it have access to all
> of the tools that are in SuSe Enterprise?

That's a rather broad question, and it has *0* to do with this aspect.
 Whatever Novell cannot GPL they will not GPL, period.  Same with with
Sun and its Microsoft, SCO, etc... agreements.  Same deal with IBM IP
with Red Hat and Novell, etc...  It's an IP question, not a "product"
question.