Samba has been called Linux’s stealth weapon — the killer app that allows Linux to replace Windows file servers. Samba’s creator, Andrew Tridgell, talks about the origins of Samba and the future of Open Source.
Andrew Tridgell embodies everything that’s great about Australia. Friendly, unpretentious, and, above all, dauntless, he has spent the last 10 years leading the Samba team in its international development effort to reverse-engineer Microsoft’s ubiquitous SMB (Server Message Block) filesharing protocol. This project, which initially was nothing more than an idle attempt to make a Sun, Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), and Windows machine talk to each other, has turned Linux into one of the best fileservers for Windows clients. Though Tridgell (who recently jumped ship from Linuxcare to work at VA Linux Systems) had a cold and was jetlagged after spending the previous week on a trade show floor explaining how he network-enabled Tivo in his spare time, he graciously agreed to be interviewed by Linux Magazine’s Robert McMillan.
Linux Magazine: The most interesting thing about Samba is the amount of detective work that goes into trying to reverse engineer SMB.
AndrewTridgell: Yeah, I love it. Whenever we find a spec for something, a little part of me is disappointed. I know we’ll get more work done and produce better code with the spec, but in some ways it’s more fun discovering things.
LM: Has that always been the case with you?
AT: My parents would say…
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