Portal:Free and open-source software/Selected article
Samba is a free software implementation of Microsoft's networking system released under the GNU General Public License. As of version 3, Samba not only provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients but can also integrate with a Windows Server ___domain, either as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or as a Domain Member. It can also be part of an Active Directory ___domain.
Samba runs on most Unix and Unix-like systems, such as GNU/Linux, Solaris, and the BSD variants, including Apple's Mac OS X Server (it was added to the OS X workstation edition with version 10.2). It is standard on virtually all distributions of Linux and is commonly included as a basic system service on other Unix-based systems as well.
Samba was originally developed for Unix by Andrew Tridgell at the Australian National University, originally by reverse-engineering the protocol used by DEC PATHWORKS server software using a packet sniffer. Tridgell later discovered that the protocol was largely identical to that used by other network server systems, including Microsoft's LAN Manager software, and he decided to focus on Microsoft network compatibility after that.
The name samba comes from inserting two vowels into the name of the standard protocol used by the Microsoft Windows network file system, "SMB" (server message block). Samba was originally called smbserver but the name was changed because of a trademark notice from the company "Syntax" who sold a product named TotalNet advanced Server, and also owned the trademark for SMBserver. The name "Samba" was arrived at by running the Unix command grep through the system dictionary looking for words that contained the letters S, M, and B in that order (grep -i 's.*m.*b.*' /usr/dict/words).