[NTLUG:Discuss] NIS no longer developed?

[Chris Cox]

Tom Adelstein wrote:
...
> 
> Novell Directory Services seems to look like the way most of the 
> enterprizes headed when Novell put up their Tools on the OpenLDAP site 
> over a year ago.
> 
> If you look at the documentation for the "new technologies" you have to 
> be a plumber to figure them out.
> 
> That's why I asked you to share your fax solution.

I'll gladly share.. as soon as I have something shareable :-)
I'll gladly share my ideas and thoughts on it if someone
is working through it currently while I'm doing the same.

> 
> People know how to fix and patch the LDAP solutions, they just don't 
> share them. I have seen them working.
> 
> Here's one you'll like. IBM's Linux Technology Lab started work on a 
> drop in replacement for Active Directory using Open LDAP about eighteen 
> months ago. I know, because I did some consulting with an intern on the 
> project. I developed a Global Address List address provider for Outlook 
> which looked and behaved like the Exchange GAL but worked on OpenLDAP. 
> We sold it with Insight Server. SO, IBM called. Where is this drop in 
> replacement? They had a dozen developers working on it.

I know the Samba 3.0 team supposedly has cracked all of this.. but
I get the feeling that the Samba team is more intrested in
0wning the tech rather than integrating (meaning Active Dir. in
particular)... so I'm anxious to give it a try anyhow.

I just don't like things that are fragile or complex to administer.
I like Samba, tough job... they do a great job... but definitely
with many, many issues.  Samba 3.0 sounds almost too good to
be true (anybody want to implement and do a presentation?).

> 
> Not that that matters, but what does matter: what is the future?
> 
> Have you seen it?

Future is bleak.  We all have to pay SCO $2,000,000 (penalties and
interest for using Linux for the past 40 years).  Microsoft revives
Bob as it's new virtual user interface (where you interact with
"Bob", the MCSSXE certified virtual persona).  RMS and ESR are killed
during an "accident" at Geeks for Guns 2032.  Adobe finds their
patent on the "alphabet" and seeks payment for use.  By 2012, no one
remembers why they are running SETI as their background screen saver,
but everyone likes the pretty graphs.