Where Samba has come from and where it might be going

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Tue, 2014-06-24 at 11:54 -0500, John Terpstra wrote:
> Andrew and Fellow Team Members,
> 
> 
> Many times the assertion has been heard that the most important thing
> in life is the journey, not the destination.  I believe we share the
> perspective that both are important.
> 
> 
> All Samba Team members have contributed to the success we have
> shared.  Some have careers that have been significantly enhanced
> through working on Samba code with other contributors.  We have
> learned much about collaboration.  We have learned (sometimes
> painfully) the value of peer review.  We have seen our work put to
> effective use by millions of users, many partners, and a good group of
> partners. Let us not lose sight of the immense investment of time,
> money, and energy that has been expended to enable this success to be
> shared.
> 
> 
> I urge all of us to enthusiastically enable broad adoption of Samba
> into the cloud environment - not by changing focus, but by bringing
> new contributors onboard.  We should NOT be focused exclusively on
> partner engagement, but without partners the journey will take a
> different course and may not win expanded opportunities for full-time
> paid Samba work that partners offer.  Cloud partners can help the
> Samba project to grow and expand.  It's not the only way! It is a way.
> 
> 
> My desire is to look back 10 years from now and be able to see the
> impact we have continued to have. I hope we will see a history of
> continued team growth.  I hope we can continue to do the right things
> and to avoid anything that may put this vision at risk.
> 
> 
> What is your vision for Samba 10 years from now?

Mine is one where Samba does take on this cloud computing challenge -
continuing to 'open windows to a wider world', be it backing Windows
servers in the cloud to Samba AD DCs, to backing HyperV-running servers
onto distributed CEPH for storage, or perhaps some other role we never
imagined.  

I also look forward to Samba continuing to be part of almost every home
and SOHO NAS, and taking on the traditional storage role in whatever
remains of the corporate desktop market. 

I still see a great future for the AD DC project in traditional markets
- I'm deeply impressed by the likes of Univention an the success they
have had over the years, and look forward to seeing the likes of Zentyal
taking off.  

But it is indeed the cloud that has great attraction.  I've long
advocated that Samba should be the natural AD of the cloud, again
bridging legacy Windows infrastructure (or newly imagined windows
infrastructure, such as desktop as a service) into a cloud identity
provider.  

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett
http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team  http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Catalyst IT          http://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba