The Santa Cruz Operation Inc is proposing a bunch of extensions to Microsoft Corp’s CIFS Common Internet File System which provides file and print sharing capabilities between Unix servers and personal computers. The firm wants CIFS to provide Windows users with better access – write and read – to files stored on all kinds of remote Unix servers. It’s effectively the technology Santa Cruz is already offering as its VisionFS software, which implements the CIFS product Microsoft has built on top of the X/Open standard SMB Server Message Block protocol, to which the company has also adding a Java client. There are currently SMB servers for NT, Unix and OS/2. Santa Cruz and other CIFS technology suppliers will take the extensions to the Internet Engineering Task Force for standardization during the second annual CIFS technical workshop being hosted by Santa Cruz on its campus between April 17 and 18. It’s unclear yet whether Microsoft itself will be supporting the extensions.
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