Summary: The first open source Active Directory server with SMB3 support, now due in mid December, is ideal for business desktop and storage needs. Samba 4 was a big beneficiary of antitrust orders forcing Microsoft to open up key protocols.
Samba 4 — the first open source Active Directory-compatible print and file server — will now ship on December 11, developers say.
It’s a bit of a delay from the recent slated finish date of Nov 27th, now the targeted date for release candidate 5. Release candidate 4 of Samba was posted on Nov 13.
Interested parties won’t mind the inconseqential delay. The popular open source software has been under development for almost a decade and one of its chief developers is advising would be users to run Samba 4 as a trial and wait for the first update early next year.