For its developers, Samba 4 is the holy grail. When they make that release, they would be able to offer businesses, 80 per cent of whom use Active Directory for authentication, the freedom to choose a non-Windows server environment and yet enjoy all the benefits of Active Directory.

Free software is likely to come under increasing attack from patent holders in the years ahead and therefore developers themselves need to understand the basics of patents, free software luminary Andrew Tridgell said today.

It takes a lot of courage to set out on an unexplored course, especially when it comes to academia. There is nothing to compare with the withering scorn that one earns from this community if one sets out on an ambitious course - and then fails miserably.

Andrew Bartlett is the other Andrew. He's a team member of the famous Samba project, the brain child of the original Andrew - Tridgell.

Samba and Mono differ in the ways the two projects have chosen to deal with software patents in the implementation, according to renowned Samba developer Jeremy Allison.

The agreement that Red Hat and Microsoft signed last week is something like a royal wedding - we all like the idea but we'd like to know a bit more about the demands made by the bride.

A great deal is being made of the fact that Linux creator Linus Torvalds has switched from using the KDE desktop to using GNOME, something he did many months ago, and something he mentioned in passing during an interview last month.

You may not consider it a "killer app" but one thing restricting Linux deployment in enterprises is an implementation of Microsoft's Active Directory (AD.) However, AD for Linux is on its way in Samba version 4 and is sure to annhilate a barrier to Linux adoption in business.

Free software luminary Andrew Tridgell will be returning to his first love - academia - for some time beginning in April.

Microsoft knew of the possibility that Samba 4 could supplant Active Directory years ago, hence it was unlikely that the company would feel that it posed any additional threat to Windows Server now, Samba founder Andrew Tridgell said today.