CIFS Engineering Workshop in Mountain View, California: September 26-28th 2007

[Jeremy Allison]

CIFS Engineering Workshop: September 26-28th 2007.

The Samba Team  will be running a CIFS Engineering Workshop
event hosted at the Google Campus in Mountain View, California, USA
on September 26-28th 2007.

This event is intended for engineers working on any CIFS products
and services, not just products based on the Samba codebase. We
welcome engineers from any implementers of the CIFS and SMB2
protocols, or from people shipping products based on these
protocols, or people with a deep interest in advancing the
standardization of these protocols.

This is not a marketing or customer focused event, the intent
is that engineers will get together and discuss protocol details
and implementation choices in an open and free environment, helped
along with free Google food and a gigabit network for testing. There
will be some arranged talks, but mostly this will be an interoperability
event.

There will be some restrictions on using information gathered at
the event for marketing purposes in the same way as the Connectathon
event restricts using any performance or defect data learned at the
event. The goal is for engineers from competing companies to feel free to
work together without fear of revealing information they wish to
keep secret.

There is no charge for attending, but as this event will be hosted
on the Google Campus space will be limited, so if you would like
to attend or send engineers to this event please email :

cifs-workshop at samba.org

as soon as possible so we can get an idea of the numbers involved
(and help Google with planning). If you'd like to present a talk,
please send a brief abstract to the same address. Currently the same
review board who accepts talks for SambaXP will review the abstracts,
but if this event is successful a more formal review process will
be adopted.

FAQ:

Why a new event ?

Attendance at the CIFS conference has fallen to such an extent that
it has become a small interest group in the larger storage conference.
The Samba Team wishes to revive interest in a broader discussion of
implementation and standardization of the CIFS protocols, as well as
promote an interoperability lab.

Who decides who will be allowed to attend ?

Currently the same group who runs the SambaXP conference, mainly
the Samba Team, SerNet, and Google (who are hosting). The goal is
to make this event as inclusive as possible, so initially we are
trying to gage interest to finalize the numbers we can host (this
is where Google comes in).

I don't use Samba, should I come ?

Certainly ! Anyone who has an interest in working on, documenting
or standardizing the CIFS and SMB2 protocols is welcome. This includes
any proprietary vendors as well as vendors who OEM the Samba codebase.
Service vendors who implement and support CIFS networking with
third-party software are also welcome.

What software will be available to test against ?

All versions of Samba, as well as any required versions of DOS
and Windows products will be available on the test network. Other
software will depend on the participants bringing versions of their
software along. We hope to be able to get a varied mixture of CIFS
implementations for testing.

My company has signed the MCPP license with Microsoft, are we welcome ?

Yes, although of course we would expect that your attendees please
respect the MCPP licensing process and not divulge any information
you have learned from the MCPP documents. You are especially welcome
to bring equipment running your CIFS implementation so we can test
against each other's implementations.

Why is Google helping ?

Google holds events on behalf of Open Source projects like Ubuntu,
and has generously donated the use of facilities within their Mountain
View Campus for this event.

Is it free ?

Yes, although you will of course have to fund any travel and
accommodation expenses yourself.

What about a T-shirt ?

Currently we don't have a logo for this event, but the organizers are
investigating making a T-shirt available for the participants.

Do I get free food ?

Yes, this is a chance to try out the famous Google cuisine :-).