Check out the new USENIX Web site.

ALS Keynotes


Jeremy Allison
"Open Source Development of a Closed Protocol"

Thursday October 14, 1999 -- 9am-10am

Samba has been very successful in implementing what many think of as a closed protocol, SMB (now renamed CIFS), which is the Microsoft file and print sharing protocol.

As Samba is shipped as part of every Linux distribution, many people erroneously think of Samba as a Linux-only product. Samba was actually started contemporaneously with Linux, and was originally developed on closed-source proprietary UNIX's as a "scratch our own itch" product (in the best Open Source tradition).

What is not widely known is the history of Samba, and how the Samba Team have been able to produce an Open Source implementation of this extremely complex protocol, with both the help and hinderance of Microsoft.

Learn about the protocol itself, how it developed, and the inside story of the complex relationship between Microsoft and the Samba Team.

Also learn about what the future holds for the development of Samba and the SMB/CIFS protocol.

About Jeremy Allison

Jeremy Allison is one of the lead developers on the Samba Team, a group of programmers developing an Open Source Windows(tm) compatible file and print server product for UNIX systems. Developed over the Internet in a distributed mannor similar to the Linux system, Samba is used by Multinational corporations and Educational establishments worldwide. Jeremy handles the release engineering and the co-ordination of Samba development efforts worldwide and acts as a corporate liason to companies using the Samba code commercially.

The main Samba Web site is: https://samba.org/

With a wide background in UNIX and Windows NT systems, Jeremy has been working on Samba since its origin in 1993. Jeremy has been working on UNIX systems since 1986. His postions include Sun, where he worked as a Windowing engineer, supporting the OpenLook intrinsics toolkit, XView, and the Sun X server; Vantive, where as the Network Architect he ported the Vantive server and client products to Windows NT; Cygnus, where he created the fist Windows NT port of the MIT Kerberos 5 Network Security system and worked on the internals of Cygwin32 - the POSIX on NT library; Whistle communications, the first company to fund him to work on Samba.

He now works for SGI, who fund him to work full-time on Samba. SGI is a major contributor to both Samba and Linux, providing the hardware for the main samba.org Web server and also providing network funding for the samba site.


Norm Schryer
"The Pain of Success, The Joy of Defeat:
Unix History"

Friday October 15, 1999 -- 6:30pm-7:30pm

Linux is a success. It has: a wide following; Microsoft professing its dread of Linux as a competitor; a large pool of talented and enthusiastic programmers of everything from the core to applications.

Linux is also the proud inheritor of the Unix mantel, including its creator's desire to make and keep Unix open and standard.

Unix created a great core OS and suite of applications. Unix became closed and proprietary ("Choose your standard.") Unix, and everyone else, lost the OS wars to upstart Microsoft.

Linux is making a new pass at the same game. This time it is the upstart and the entrenched vendor is Microsoft.

What happened to Unix on the way from Ken Thompson's mind to the marketplace is a great, and illuminating, story for Linux.

About Norm Schryer

Norman L. Schryer is the Division Manager of AT&T Broadband Services Research. His team is responsible for the creation of new broadband, always-on services in communications and entertainment.

Mr. Schryer began his career with AT&T in 1969 in the Computing Science Research Center of Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ. He worked on the numerical solution of partial differential equations and their applications in understanding physical phenomena, especially those dealing with the processing and manufacturing of lasers, semiconductors and optical fiber. In 1982 he became the Head of the Computing Mathematics Research Department. In 1993 he created, working with the local cable TV company, a dark optical fiber network serving the homes of 18 Bell Labs' Researchers and a local Middle School. These were lit with 155Mb/s OC-3. In 1994 this led to Bell Labs telecommuting using cable modems and in 1998 the purchase by AT&T of TCI. In 1996, at the AT&T/Lucent/NCR tri-vestiture, Mr. Schryer moved to AT&T Labs as the Division Manager of Broadband Services Research.

Norman L. Schryer received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1969. He received a mini-MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1996. Mr. Schryer is a member of the American Mathematical Society, Association for Computing Machinery and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

He and his wife, Jan, have two children, Gunther and Katrina.
 

Atlanta Linux Showcase - P.O. Box 675161 - Marietta, GA 30006 Main Menu