[jcifs] We seem to have found a home in Android Apps.

[Jim Hurne]

On 01/02/2012 08:18 AM, Sebastian Sickelmann wrote:
> i love to see that you think some contributors to jcifs would be great.
> But it is not that easy to participate to jcifs as for many other
> open-source projects.

I agree with Sebastian. In particular, the lack of a true version 
control system is holding the JCIFS project back.

I'm sure Mike would agree he cannot do everything. In fact, based on 
some of his responses to questions posted to the mailing list over the 
past year, it's increasingly clear Mike has less time to devote to JCIFS 
than he had in the past. This is perfectly reasonable. After all, it is 
a lot to ask one person to maintain a critical library like JCIFS. 
Hosting the JCIFS source code in a public version control system like 
git would definitely make it easier for others to pitch in and help out.

Beyond version control, JCIFS could really use a true issue management 
system. Such a system would: (a) make it easier to track and prioritize 
reported issues, and (b) reduce the number of redundant posts on the 
mailing list because people tend to look at the issue management system 
first.  In terms of priority, the need for a true version control system 
is much higher than the need for an issue management system, so I'd 
suggest looking into git and samba.org git hosting first.

Jim++


> Am 01.01.2012 22:54, schrieb Christopher R. Hertel:
>> jCIFS is a project I started many years ago, probably in 1998, but I'm not
>> sure.  I had only a basic understanding of Java and a vague idea that an
>> SMB/CIFS toolkit for Java would be useful.  I wrote some awful Java code and
>> put it up on the web for public ridicule until someone (Mike) came along and
>> said "I can do better".
>>
>> My thanks to Mike for taking over and making the project come to life.  My
>> role has become quite small in comparison.  Thanks also to Eric for building
>> Davenport on top of jCIFS, and for the NTLMSSP documentation that is such an
>> important reference in the SMB/CIFS community that Microsoft had to write a
>> translation cheat-sheet to explain the terms in they use in their documentation.
>>
>> Thanks to everyone who uses jCIFS, particularly those who have submitted
>> patches and ideas.  We have seen jCIFS used in mainframes to cellphones and
>> everything in between.
>>
>> Speaking of cellphones...
>> I know of two very popular file browser apps for Android that use jCIFS as
>> their underlying SMB/CIFS implementation.  As far as I can tell, however,
>> there is no acknowledgement of jCIFS in these apps, and no pointer to the
>> jCIFS source.  I would like to see jCIFS acknowledged and the links
>> provided, per the license.  The LGPL was specifically chosen to make it easy
>> to use jCIFS with closed-source applications, so there is no reason not to
>> meet the terms.
>>
>> jCIFS is a perfect fit for Android, so I expect that there are several apps
>> that use it.  It would be nice to get some participation from Android
>> developers.  In particular, I would like to see jCIFS expanded to include
>> SMB2 support.  Windows XP is the last supported Windows OS that does not
>> include SMB2 capabilities, so I think it's time.
>>
>> Chris -)-----
>>
> Hi Chris,
>
> i love to see that you think some contributors to jcifs would be great.
> But it is not that easy to participate to jcifs as for many other
> open-source projects.
>
> Some examples:
> I asked for how to contribute[1] to jcifs and how to link my work
> back[2] in terms of LGPL.
> I think it will be possible to create a public repository at [3] so that
> interested parties can
> fork the jcifs-repos and provide public browsable repositories with the
> patches they want
> to contribute. The lead-committer of jcifs can choose to pull in all
> these changes or also
> just a few of them to the main repository.
>
> I just found that unfortunatly the link to the mailinglist is broken:
> https://lists.samba.org/listinfo/jcifs is wrong: The right link seems to
> be [4]
>
> I would love to contribute(test,review and submit code) to SMBv2 support
> and an optional jdk7-filesystem-provider.
> --
> Sebastian
>
> [1] https://lists.samba.org/archive/jcifs/2011-July/009657.html
> [2] https://lists.samba.org/archive/jcifs/2011-July/009664.html
> [3] http://gitweb.samba.org/
> [4] https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/jcifs