[Samba] Building libsmbclient independent of Samba

[Andrew]

Hello,

I'm writing an application that is network-aware, and I would like to
add SMB/CIFS support to it. I would like to link against libsmbclient,
but I haven't figured out a way to build the library without installing
the whole Samba package. 

First, are there any plans to offer libsmbclient independently?
Second, if not, does anyone know of a well-maintained library that
offers the same functionality?

I considered using code from gnome-vfs, but it has quite a long list of
dependencies.

Pointers to relevant docs or old emails greatly appreciated...

Thanks,
-Andrew