Microsoft and Samba Working Together at Last

Samba is an Open Source suite/protocol that provides file sharing, printer sharing, and authentication that is built on reverse engineering the NetBIOS network protcol used by Microsoft Windows. It essentially allows a server other than Windows (like Linux) appear to be a Windows server. After a European anti-trust suit and, what I imagine, a lot of negotiations, Microsoft and Samba announced that: Today the Samba Team announced that they’re satisfied with the agreement, and are taking a Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP) trade secret and copyright license. This will give them [Samba Team] access to Microsoft specifications for the protocols in WSPP (such as file, print, and user and group administrative services) and allow the Samba Team to create, use, and distribute implementations. I expect that this will significantly improve the process of Samba development, and produce better quality interoperation between Windows and Linux/UNIX environments.

You can read both Microsoft's and the Samba Team's press releases at:

Microsoft: If you're surprised, you're not paying attention

Samba Team: Samba Team Receives Microsoft Protocol Docs

The Samba Team's announcement emphasizes the European Commission's anti-trust decision while the Microsoft announcement doesn't (not a surprise, right?). But, hey, this is good news for all concerned. I regularly run Samba on my Linux boxes to provide easy file access between Linux and Windows (and Mac OS X for that matter). Anything that makes this better is a good thing.