'Samba' Networking Protocol Project Gets Big Funding from the German Sovereign Tech Fund (samba.plus)
(Saturday September 14, 2024 @05:02PM (EditorDavid)
from the da dept.)
- Reference: 0174996163
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/14/1726252/samba-networking-protocol-project-gets-big-funding-from-the-german-sovereign-tech-fund
- Source link: https://samba.plus/blog/detail/sernet-secures-funding-for-samba-project-from-sovereign-tech-fund
Samba is "a free software re-implementation of the SMB networking protocol," [1]according to Wikipedia . And now the Samba project "has secured [2]significant funding (€688,800.00) from the German Sovereign Tech Fund to advance the project," writes [3]Jeremy Allison — Sam (who is Slashdot reader #8,157 — and also a long standing member of Samba's core team):
> The investment was successfully applied for by [information security service provider] SerNet. Over the next 18 months, Samba developers from SerNet will tackle 17 key development subprojects aimed at enhancing Samba's security, scalability, and functionality.
>
> The [4]Sovereign Tech Fund is a [5]German federal government funding program that supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructure. Their goal is to sustainably strengthen the open source ecosystem.
>
> The project's focus is on areas like SMB3 Transparent Failover, SMB3 UNIX extensions, SMB-Direct, Performance and modern security protocols such as SMB over QUIC. These improvements are designed to ensure that Samba remains a robust and secure solution for organizations that rely on a sovereign IT infrastructure. Development work began as early as September the 1st and is expected to be completed by the end of February 2026 for all sub-projects.
>
> All development will be done in the open following the existing Samba development process. First gitlab CI pipelines [6]have already been running and gitlab MRs will appear soon!
Back in 2000, Jeremy Allison [7]answered questions from Slashdot readers about Samba.
Allison is now a board member at both the GNOME Foundation and the Software Freedom Conservancy, a distinguished engineer at Rocky Linux creator CIQ, and a long-time [8]free software advocate .
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)
[2] https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/samba
[3] https://www.slashdot.org/~Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam
[4] https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Tech_Fund
[6] https://gitlab.com/samba-team/devel/samba/-/pipelines/1446299673
[7] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/00/03/24/0752258/jeremy-allison-answers-samba-questions
[8] https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/05/19/0030248/why-a-frozen-distribution-linux-kernel-isnt-the-safest-choice-for-security
> The investment was successfully applied for by [information security service provider] SerNet. Over the next 18 months, Samba developers from SerNet will tackle 17 key development subprojects aimed at enhancing Samba's security, scalability, and functionality.
>
> The [4]Sovereign Tech Fund is a [5]German federal government funding program that supports the development, improvement, and maintenance of open digital infrastructure. Their goal is to sustainably strengthen the open source ecosystem.
>
> The project's focus is on areas like SMB3 Transparent Failover, SMB3 UNIX extensions, SMB-Direct, Performance and modern security protocols such as SMB over QUIC. These improvements are designed to ensure that Samba remains a robust and secure solution for organizations that rely on a sovereign IT infrastructure. Development work began as early as September the 1st and is expected to be completed by the end of February 2026 for all sub-projects.
>
> All development will be done in the open following the existing Samba development process. First gitlab CI pipelines [6]have already been running and gitlab MRs will appear soon!
Back in 2000, Jeremy Allison [7]answered questions from Slashdot readers about Samba.
Allison is now a board member at both the GNOME Foundation and the Software Freedom Conservancy, a distinguished engineer at Rocky Linux creator CIQ, and a long-time [8]free software advocate .
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)
[2] https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/tech/samba
[3] https://www.slashdot.org/~Jeremy+Allison+-+Sam
[4] https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Tech_Fund
[6] https://gitlab.com/samba-team/devel/samba/-/pipelines/1446299673
[7] https://developers.slashdot.org/story/00/03/24/0752258/jeremy-allison-answers-samba-questions
[8] https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/05/19/0030248/why-a-frozen-distribution-linux-kernel-isnt-the-safest-choice-for-security
Why Samba? (Score:2)
by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
As far as I remember it is a chatty and inefficient protocol.
Re: (Score:3)
by thegarbz ( 1787294 )
And despite its inefficiencies it largely is used to make the world go round. What alternative do you propose? And when thinking of it think of something feature rich that is widely used and supported by every operating system as a standard way of sharing files.
Re: (Score:2)
by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 )
Yes, it is. It emulates Microsoft's Active Directory domain controllers, and their clients, quite well for Linux and UNIX systems and is designed for compatibility, not efficiency. It handles CIFS for file sharing, DNS, DHCP, Kerberos, and LDAP altogether, with high availability and load balancing and backup, as an Active Directory replacement. It's very difficult to do all of those efficiently.
Re:Is this public money? (Score:4, Informative)
Of course and why not? Isn't that the whole idea? There's no reason FOSS can't also make money for VARs.
Anything that helps produce more open code is good.
Re: (Score:2)
Value Added Reseller
Re: (Score:2)
In addition, several articles have noted things like [1]German state gov. ditching Windows for Linux, 30K workers migrating [arstechnica.com] (April 2024) so anything that helps with Windows/Linux interoperability is probably a good thing for them. Google: [2]german government windows linux [google.com]
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/german-state-gov-ditching-windows-for-linux-30k-workers-migrating/
[2] https://www.google.com/search?q=german+government+windows+linux
Re: (Score:2)
It's GPL so you'll get the features too.