How to move storage OEMs to Samba 4.0 ?

[Andreas Schneider]

On Tuesday 05 June 2012 16:16:53 Jeremy Allison wrote:
> Hi all,

Hi Jeremy,

> So the full Samba 4.0 release will occur soon (*), and we need
> to think about how to work with OEMs on this. Currently most
> Samba OEMs are file serving only, and are on a combination
> of 3.5.x and 3.6.x.

the same applies more or less for enterprise distributions. We still have to 
ship 3.6.x untils 4.0 is out and we will have to support it for quite some 
time.

The next thing is we need to discuss how we support the file server part in 
4.0.

Do we support to run smbd standalone?
Do we support and upgrade path from smbd setup to full DC provision?
What scripts and init scripts do we provide for this?

I've started with systemd support, see packaging/systemd

> 1). Once 4.0.x ships, relax the rules on functionality
> additions to 3.6.x so that we can add *some* limited new
> functionality like bugid 8926, or the pthread aio code,
> or the new VFS module someone wants to submit. *Maybe*
> VFS changes (not sure about that..).
> 
> We will of course commit to doing this only for a year or
> so. Requirements for new SMB3.0 functionality will attract
> OEMs to 4.0 eventually. This is *close* to what we're
> doing now, but it losens up the restrictions we currently
> have on adding new code.

That's the way to go, as also enterprise distribution will have to support it 
for quite some time.
 
> 2). Once 4.0.x ships, fork off a 3.7.0 tree from the current
> 3.6.x tree and add the limited new functionality there. As
> this is post 4.0.x ship then we still recommend 4.0.x for
> all users, but we have the ability to add *limited* new
> functionality to a "trusted" release that is very close to
> what storage OEMs currently depend on.

BIG FAT VETO. I think this will send a wrong message. Doing this is like 
saying that 4.0 is not ready and mature enough.


	-- andreas

-- 
Andreas Schneider                   GPG-ID: F33E3FC6
www.cryptomilk.org                asn at cryptomilk.org