[Fedora-directory-users] features

[David Boreham]

> Fedora DS is a direct and immediate descendant of the Netscape DS, 
> which was the first commercial LDAPv2 implementation in the world. Now 
> it's at LDAPv3. Netscape invented most of these features, and OpenLDAP 
> project started in 1999 to basically try to implement the core server 
> and some of these Netscape features.

Actually OpenLDAP began with the old UMich code, which was
also the basis for the Netscape server codeine. The two share a single
common ancestor.

> If you ask me, the only real benefit to using OpenLDAP today is the 
> abundance of strange backends, e.g. if you want to make a really 
> special purpose LDAP server. You can make a directory out of just 
> about any arbitrary data source, etc. Writing backends for Fedora DS 
> is also possible, but there aren't too many available at the moment.

Because of the common heritage, the back end plugin interface
is similar (but certainly not identical) to that of OpenLDAP.
So it might be not too hard to port a backend written for
OpenLDAP's server to FDS.