FINAL: Future/end of TNG

[Matthew Geddes]

"F. Ross Lord" wrote:
> 
> Gerald Carter wrote:
> > Does anyone ever listen?  We have over and over again
> > said that we are working on PDC support.
> >
> > jerry
> 
> Is there a roadmap/timeframe for PDC/BDC support in the works?  All
> interpersonal politics aside, the one thing you seen in every message
> from users about this is "I really need this."  What kind of priority is
> it for the current samba team?  How can people who need this
> functionality, both those who can/will write code for it and those who
> can't/won't write code for it, assist the samba team in bringing the
> functionality into production?
> 
> <microrant>
> A lot of the people who have been following PDC/BDC have been in an
> uncomfortable limbo since active TNG development stopped.  We don't
> really know what is going on, aside from "we're working on it" and
> several of the people who put a lot of work into this functionality quit
> the project.  Perhaps you can take a page out of Jeremy's book and try
> to keep this polite.
> </microrant>
>

I was just going to ignore the rest of this thread, but hey. ;-)

The Samba team has (at least on the NT-DOM list) explained time and time
again that Samba TNG would never be used by itself (in fact, I believe
they weren't even going to allow CVS access to the general public).
Samba TNG was for Luke and co to test and hack around, so that what they
learnt could be moved to Samba (the HEAD branch). This has always been
the case as far as I know. TNG development has stopped, not just because
Luke left, but it is getting very close to having served it's purpose.
If people had followed the list, or read the list archives (I believe
they work now ;-)), there would not have been this confusion.

The Samba team have been working flat out for some time now, trying to
add features from Samba TNG to Samba. I don't believe that they could
possibly put an accurate timeframe on completion, because the set of
protocols they are dealing with are known to be undocumented (until Luke
documented them) and Microsoft have been pretty keen to change little
parts of the protocols to break things like Samba.

I think the Samba team has done a great job, and from what they have
told us on the mailing lists, they seem to me to be doing the right
thing. Please, by all means use you coding skills to help Samba, but
make sure you do help Samba, instead of throwing a tantrum. I'm sure the
Samba team would greatly appreciate working Samba TNG patches to apply
to the latest HEAD CVS. Coding isn't the only way to help either, I
personally try to answer as many newbie questions as I can, so that the
Samba team have more time coding. Samba documentation is also another
area where things could be improved. Speak to you local Samba team
member for more details of what needs to be done.

My 2 cents,
Matt

-- 

Matthew Geddes
Network Manager
Xavier College
Gawler, SA

...And by the way, Lars Kneschke's Samba TNG FAQ is at
http://www.kneschke.de/projekte/samba_tng/faq/index.php3