[Samba] how legal is samba

Ed Holden eholden at mclean.harvard.edu
Thu Nov 20 23:12:59 GMT 2003


Jason,

People use this Samba PDC setup all the time.  As far as I know when you 
have a Windows PDC you need licenses for the server and for each of the 
clients.  This is in addition to the client licenses you own for each 
machine.  So if you buy a machine with Windows 2000 Professional you 
have a valid license for it.  If you want to connect it to your Windows 
PDC you need a client license on the server as well.  So in your case 
you'd just have client licenses for each machine, but you wouldn't need 
them on the server.

Can anyone else running an NT/2000/2003 shop confirm this licensing 
issue?  As far as I know there is no issue, and in theory you're more 
safe from the BSA with Linux/Samba than with all-Windows, since you 
can't make any licensing errors.

-Ed

Jason Adams wrote:

> I understand that the smb protocol is not in any violation, what i was 
> talking about was does setting up a samba box to authenticate windows 
> users conflict with any laws, seeing as how you are now negating the 
> requirement for a licensed windows server. I would love to get rid of 
> our Win2k pdc but my manager is a little sketchy since we have been in 
> the eyes of the BSA for some time now (another story).
> Jason
> 
> Philip Edelbrock wrote:
> 
>> SMB is a spec from IBM, if I remember right.  M$ implements it (or a 
>> flavor of it anyway), but they don't 'own' it or have some proprietary 
>> closed hold on the standard.  I.e., Samba is not reverse-engineered, 
>> if that's what you are thinking.  It also can't be(?) used to 
>> circumvent copyright, which is what the DMCA is all about, right?
>>
>> Be careful about posting stuff like this to the list.  It's flame bait 
>> for sure. ;')
>>
>> Take care.
>>
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> Jason Adams wrote:
>>
>>> With all this DMCA crud, is samba a target for a IP case from MS
>>>
>>> Jason Adams
>>>
> 
> 



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