$think_pink_alert on$
Fellow MPE-niks,
how about entering Open Source land and enjoying its benefits?
This posting is about Samba, but the underlying idea can easily
be applied to other freeware packages as well.
Quite a while ago, I played with Samba-2 sources from Oz on MPE/iX.
Out of curiosity, as usual. Just to see if the latest and greatest
versions would be (more) porting-friendly, now that the Samba Team
also uses GNU autoconf.
Recent postings on HP3000-L seem to indicate that there are a few
people (maybe not too many) with a need for or interest in Samba-2 on
MPE/iX. So I have uploaded my quick & dirty Samba 2.0.5/iX prototype
to the GNU cvs repository on Jazz now.
What does "quick & dirty" mean?
The Samba 2.0.5 sources are tweaked just enough to make it build and
launch on MPE/iX. The SMBD server process will respond to SMBCLIENT or
PC requests (guest shares only).
I don't have an immediate need for Samba-2 as the current version of
Samba/iX works quite nicely for me. Moreover, my spare time is limited
and topics like Java or Linux are also quite interesting. So I simply
was lazy and only made a small number of adjustments to the sources.
Some of the open issues (or todo items) are: the MPE specific filename
mapping to handle special characters like ~ or blank had not yet been
rolled in; the priv mode routines for MPE specific user validation are
not yet rolled in; no thoughts have been spent on the encrypted pass-
word handling, which uses a separate smbpasswd repository in the Unix
version; free disc space is not reported properly, the missing statfs()
call is simply implemented as a stub that pretends a 1 GB disk with
about 50% free space; etc etc.
You get the idea. This is not yet a usable piece of software, but it
might make a nice starting point for a group of interested individuals
that form a team in the Open Source development spirit.
Why GNU cvs repository on Jazz?
GNU cvs is widely used in the Open Source developer community. It
does not only work on a single machine, but also has a client-server
feature set. People can checkout source versions across the Internet,
from a central repository to a workspace on their local machine. The
cvs software keeps track of changes between versions, for example to
show them in various diff formats. Changes that are submitted back to
the cvs repository via "cvs commit" can be picked up by concurrent
developers via "cvs update". This source code merging is much more
convenient than manually applying diff files with the patch utility.
It also consumes less network bandwith that frequent full downloads.
Having a GNU cvs repository in Jazz, it seems like a good idea to
try the whole infrastructure that has been so successful in the Open
Source developer community.
Anybody interested to join?
Don't ask what your country can do for you, ask what you... ;-)
With cvs on Jazz the door is open for contributors. There is no need
to be shy, this is not only for guru hackers or people who can walk
on water. Every helping hand is welcome. Remember that the power of
Open Source developer communities also benefits from the large number
of helping hands (programmers, testers, debuggers, documenters, etc).
You can use my "Pretty Good Porting for MPE/iX" paper as a starter,
if you don't have prior porting experience. Everybody should be able
to offer help based on his abilities. Sharing knowledge and experience
should be a major aspect of such a team effort. So in return for the
time and work you contribute, you will (hopefully) receive lots of new
knowledge and experience -- and, of course, faster progress on the
Samba-2/iX front :-)
I can say that I did learn quite a lot during my various porting
projects. And it was a lot of fun to interact with peers on the net.
And I guess with a cvs based effort where several people work on
the same port, it might even get more fun.
Notice that I am not implying that I intend to become "project lead"
or somesuch. I am only donating the "starting point" and trying to
motivate a few people to get the ball rolling. I'd surely be happy
to see the whole thing fly on its own, but -of course- will also be
available to coach, contribute ideas, etc (as time permits).
What do we need?
There are different ways to access the cvs repository on Jazz. In
the best case, your 3000 would be able to access Jazz on TCP port
2401(?) directly. Another option would be a socksified cvs version,
if your network has firewalls and socks-servers. Yet another option
might be to use a Windows or Linux PC as middle-man, as they could
mount a Samba/iX share to place the checked out sources on the MPE
system (where the compile, link and run takes place). If nothing
else helps, downloading cvs snapshots or diff's might be the last
resort.
Your 3000 will need to have gnucore, gnugcc and gnucvs installed;
either from the Interex MPE Freeware Tape or from Jazz. The HP c89
compiler might also work, I simply have not tried it because the
free gcc is available to more contributors in spe.
It would probably make sense to create a dedicated mailing list for
the Samba-2/iX developers; it would be too cumbersome if everbody
would have to maintain his or her own distribution list and it would
not be appropriate to flood HP3000-L with lots of detailed messages
discussing todo items, next steps, design issues, questions on the
tools, and so on.
Well, now it's your turn to comment or join the team.
One final point, that I should not forget to mention: This suggestion
"let's use GNU cvs on Jazz to try the Open Source development model with
Samba-2 for MPE/iX as an example" is independent of the official Samba/iX
version that is bundled and supported by HP. However, I somehow suspect
that progress on an unsupported Jazz version could also have a positive
impact on upcoming official versions. Maybe the respective lab engineers
would even join the Open Source team. Who knows.
Cheers, Lars.
PS: Also see http://jazz.external.hp.com/src/java/opensource/cvs.html
(in the CVS Web pages you can also drill drown to samba/source/mpe/ReadMe
to get brief hints how to build on MPE/iX).
$think_pink_alert off$
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