Re: OpenAFS vs IBM AFS

On 8/12/2022 12:50 PM, Ben Huntsman ([email protected]) wrote:
> Hi guys-
>
>    So I know IBM released the AFS code to the community at the 
> beginning and that is what became OpenAFS.  But from various release 
> notes on the IBM site, it would seem that IBM continued (and 
> continues) to develop its own AFS internally as well.
>
>    Does anyone know how far the IBM vs OpenAFS code bases have 
> diverged?  I know they at least have more AIX ports than the OpenAFS 
> code currently does...

IBM released OpenAFS 1.0 on 31 Oct 2000.   That release was a fork from 
IBM AFS 3.6.  The fork itself at this point was substantial.  IBM had to 
clean the code base before it could be released.   The diff stat between 
these releases was not inconsequential.


IBM has continued development of IBM AFS 3.6.  There has been no effort 
to synchronize with OpenAFS.  They are very much independent creatures 
at this point.  Since the openafs-ibm-1_0 release OpenAFS has undergone 
substantial change


   6127 files changed, 1308387 insertions(+), 567306 deletions(-)

>
>    Does anyone know anyone at IBM that could be asked if IBM would be 
> willing to re-contribute it's current codebase?
>
Yes we know people and they know us.  It wouldn't be worth asking.    
There is simply too much churn to merge code changes.

At best, concepts and features added to IBM AFS 3.6pXXX could be 
re-implemented in OpenAFS.


Jeffrey Altman