Donald Gaffney
1998-Jul-09 15:34 UTC
lwn reports the Samba team could use coders and documenters
I read in todays (July 9, 1998) edition of the Linux Weekly News that "the Samba team could use coders, documenters and packagers as a result of a temporary dip in the volunteer resources available to them (caused by an unfortunate set of co-incidences, though we haven't heard the details yet)." and "This has slowed the Samba effort a bit." The full text of this news can be seen at http://lwn.net/ So, what's up? What needs to be done? -Don
Jeremy Allison
1998-Jul-10 16:50 UTC
lwn reports the Samba team could use coders and documenters
Donald Gaffney wrote :> I read in todays (July 9, 1998) edition of the Linux Weekly News > that > > "the Samba team could use coders, documenters and > packagers as a result of a temporary dip in the > volunteer resources available to them > (caused by an unfortunate set of co-incidences, > though we haven't heard the details yet)." > > and "This has slowed the Samba effort a bit." > > The full text of this news can be seen at > > http://lwn.net/ > > So, what's up? What needs to be done? >They got a bit carried away with themselves I'm afraid. I think they started this rumour after I told someone to 'just hire someone to code it up for you if you need it *now*' on comp.protocols.smb when they were wanting a feature that is planned but not yet implemented. Here's a copy of the response I sent to them (doctored to add back in the two people I missed when I sent it to lwn - I've already apoligised to them for missing them out). Cheers, Jeremy Allison, Samba Team. ----------------------------------------------------------- "Rumours of trouble greatly exaggerated :-)". Well I wouldn't put it that badly, you make it sound like we're on our last legs :-). Actually we're more victims of our own popularity. The problem is Samba is *so* popular that we cannot begin to scratch the surface of all the requests for help that we get (although John Terpstra makes a valiant effort). The actual state of affairs is this : Currently the Samba Team has one member paid by Whistle Communications to work full time on improving and developing Samba, that is, me (Jeremy Allison). I do the official releases and do lots of debugging when genuine bugs are reported, but I don't really have time to answer questions about the use of Samba, just do the development. As for the other members, Andrew is working mostly on his theisis at the moment, Luke is suffering from carpel tunnel quite badly which is limiting his typing, although he is as enthusiastic as ever :-). John Terpstra also spends almost his full time working on Samba issues and answering user questions, which is wonderful as he also has a business to run. Richard Sharpe is working away on the smbtar issues, Paul Ashton is becoming able to devote more time to Samba (although he also has a business to run). Volker is spending most of his time earning a living at the moment and has little time for Samba support. John Blair has started a new job (Samba related) and is still coming up to speed at Cobalt Micro. *** <start doctored part> *** Chris Hertel is plugging away coding up our scalable WINS code (and fixing many design flaws in the Samba code whilst he's about it :-) and of course there's Paul Blackman who maintains all our Web pages. ***** <end doctored part> ***** We are attempting to close out the 1.9.18 release stream (we are about to release 1.9.18p9) and then concentrate most of our efforts on the new features and functionality in the next (1.9.19) release. The need is really twofold. Firstly, people who understand the new features (domain client support) in 1.9.19 could help document these new features. Actual coding is proceeding quite well, as is the overall design of the new code. One of the delays for the new alpha releases is that there is *so much* new functionality - it really is quite amazing what advances have been made in the HEAD cvs branch over the 1.9.18 code stream, but all this stuff needs testing before a release. Secondly, and most importantly, people who are able to support Samba for other users could help greatly by answering other peoples questions on the mailing lists and newsgroups. I know they do this anyway, but what has occured is that people email samba-bugs with usage questions, rather than emailing the general samba list. The samba-bugs address really should be for new patches and bug reports only. Imagine if the linux-kernel development list was linked to the new linux user lists and you get the idea of the incoming traffic to samba-bugs :-). One other interesting item of Samba related news, Silicon Graphics (SGI) will be adopting Samba soon and as a result of that I will be joining SGI within a week or so to help them productize Samba. Watch for an announcement from SGI when their plans are finalized. I'm hoping this will expand the resources significantly and will greatly increase the rate of Samba development. So in short - please help each other support Samba ! Regards, Jeremy Allison, Samba Team. -- -------------------------------------------------------- Buying an operating system without source is like buying a self-assembly Space Shuttle with no instructions. --------------------------------------------------------