[Fedora-directory-users] Advantages of using FDS vs OpenLDAP?

[Richard Megginson]

Mike Jackson wrote:

> Howard Chu wrote:
>
>> Sorry to poke at a moldy old thread, but I think some misconceptions
>> need to be cleared up.
>
>
> Hi Howard,
>  That certainly was a moldy old thread. I'm surprised it took this 
> long to catch your attention :-)
>
>
>> I'm not here to attack FDS. I have nothing but respect for the team
>> working on it today. But the fact that OpenLDAP developed under
>> different conditions, with a different philosophy, is just that -
>> philosophical difference.
>
>
>  This is one problem which I have with using OL in commercial systems: 
> developers pushing their philosophy. The preaching of philosophies is 
> a fundamental difference between open-source and commercial 
> projects/products, and fortunately not all open-source projects do it. 
> With a commercial product, the customer is always right and new 
> features (like MMR) will appear and be enabled by default with 
> sufficient customer demand.

I don't believe the customer is always right.  A good marketing 
organization will give the customer what they ask for.  A great one will 
give the customer what he/she really needs/wants, which is not always 
what the customer asks for.  We were fortunate at Netscape and Red Hat 
to have a couple of great PMs, and a few good ones.

What you will find is that the people who have invested enough time and 
money into OpenLDAP are quite satisfied with it and don't really need 
any other solution.  Since OpenLDAP has been open source for so long, 
there is a community around it who have developed other backends, 
overlays, and other assorted code for doing things like a perl backend, 
the PADL stuff, heimdal integration, etc.  Those developers may also be 
quite satisfied with OpenLDAP.

> With an open-source project, the developers sometimes call the 
> "customers" crazy, stupid, uninformed, etc, and tell them to be quiet 
> or go away if they don't like it.

That happens with proprietary software just as much or more, it's just 
not as public :-)  c.f. Microsoft, Oracle

That being said, I have been bothered by the tone of discussion on the 
openldap lists at times, and I don't want to have that sort of 
negativity on the fedora ds lists.  Perhaps it is just a difference of 
philosophy.

> Since this project's software has commercial roots, and still has 
> commercial funding, thankfully you don't see much pushing of 
> philosophy here.

You see a different philosophy.  Besides, OpenLDAP does have a 
commercial entity behind it (Symas), and they do have customers, and 
they do want to provide features and services for them.

>
>  The biggest problem I have with OL is that the -users mailing list is 
> censored, which is sometimes used to ensure that philosophy can be 
> pushed without being questioned. I have had numerous postings to 
> openldap-users blocked, which either questioned (even indirectly) the 
> philosophy of OL or mentioned the name of another directory server. 
> I'm happy that we have freedom of speech on this list and can have 
> this discussion; it would be prohibited on openldap-users. I really 
> despise being censored, and I'm sure that many other people feel the 
> same way.

There are other lists that can be used to talk about other directory 
servers and how they compare to OpenLDAP e.g. the umich list, and to 
some extend the ldap-interop list.  I don't fault Kurt for keeping the 
discussions germane - perhaps we will have to do the same with the 
Fedora DS lists if we become victims of our own popularity, which is a 
good problem to have :-)

>
>  Considering those two problems, I would have a difficult time saying 
> that I have nothing but respect for the *entire* OL team. However, I 
> do have a lot of respect for you because you listen to opposing views 
> with an open mind and are willing to debate them in a friendly manner.
>
> BR,
> Mike
>
> -- 
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> Fedora-directory-users at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-directory-users

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