[OpenAFS] Release of MacOS 10 client

[Ted Creedon]

Competition is the life of trade.=20

________________________________________
From: openafs-info-admin@openafs.org <openafs-info-admin@openafs.org> on be=
half of Jeffrey Altman <jaltman@auristor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2016 2:09 PM
To: openafs-info@openafs.org
Subject: Re: [OpenAFS] Release of MacOS 10 client

On 1/27/2016 1:23 PM, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>
> Jeffrey,
>
> Those of us who are not AuriStor customers are naturally reluctant to
> depend on AuriStor's continued generosity in making these clients
> freely available.  (And those of us who are SNA customers are
> naturally desirous of a client that is supported under our SNA
> contracts.)
>
> -GAWollman

Garrett,

At the moment fewer than 4% of client downloads from our site are being
used to access cells that fund the development of those clients.  It is
for that exact reason that we stopped distributing clients via the
OpenAFS web site.  Even though all of the effort, expenses and liability
associated with producing the Windows and OSX and iOS clients were borne
by AuriStor, Inc. (formerly known as Your File System, Inc.), the money
that should have paid for the development went into someone else's bank
account.

Developers do not work for free.  If you full time job is developing and
supporting a distributed file system, it is not a hobby and you expect
to get paid.  Otherwise it isn't possible to put a roof over your head
and feed your spouse and kids.

  freeloader
  noun
  a person who takes advantage of others' generosity without giving
  anything in return.

This is the appropriate term describing the vast majority of AFS cell
operators around the globe.   My guess is that fewer than 20% of cell
operators spend any money supporting the development, packaging and
distribution of software supporting their cell.

The AuriStor File System is not free.  There are real costs associated
with developing the clients, the servers, and the admin tooling.  Not to
mention mobile friendly html5 web front-ends, nfs3 front ends, and other
proxy services.  AuriStor clients are not built from the OpenAFS code
base.  They are built from the AuriStor code base and provide seamless
access to IBM AFS 3.6, OpenAFS and AuriStor File System services.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.  If you want a file system
that provides wire privacy that isn't using a watered down 1970s
deprecated encryption system, support for the IPv6 that is available
from your home and mobile Internet providers, the ability to host imap
mail or other multi-writer workloads in /afs without melting down the
cell, and the ability to saturate servers with multiple 10gbit NICs,
give us a ring.

Jeffrey Altman