| 1 | <html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"><title>Foreword</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="samba.css" type="text/css"><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.71.0"><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide"><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="The Official Samba-3 HOWTO and Reference Guide"><link rel="prev" href="pr02.html" title="Attribution"><link rel="next" href="TOSHpreface.html" title="Preface"></head><body bgcolor="white" text="black" link="#0000FF" vlink="#840084" alink="#0000FF"><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Foreword</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pr02.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="TOSHpreface.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></div><div class="preface" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a name="id317292"></a>Foreword</h2></div></div></div><p>
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| 2 | When John first asked me to write an introductory piece for his latest book, I was somewhat mystified as to
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| 3 | why he chose me. A conversation with John provided some of the rationale, and he left it to me to fill in the
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| 4 | <span class="emphasis"><em>rest</em></span> of the story. So, if you are willing to endure a little bit of background, I will
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| 5 | provide the part of the story that John wouldn't provide.
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| 6 | </p><p>
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| 7 | I am the Director of Corporate Standards at Sun Microsystems, and manage Sun's standards portfolio. Before
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| 8 | that, I was the Director of Standards at Netscape, which was when I met John. Before Sun, there was Digital
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| 9 | Equipment Corporation, also standards. I've written several books on standards, and tend to observe (and
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| 10 | occasionally help) the technical and business trends that drive standardization as a discipline. I tend to see
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| 11 | standardization as a management tool, not as a technical discipline and this is part of the rationale that
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| 12 | John provided.
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| 13 | </p><p>
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| 14 | The book that you have before you focuses on a particular standardized way of doing something hence, it is a
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| 15 | book about a standard. The most important thing to keep in mind about a standard is the rationale for its
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| 16 | creation. Standards are created not for technical reasons, not for business reasons, but for a deeper and much
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| 17 | more compelling reason. Standards are created and used to allow people to communicate in a meaningful way.
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| 18 | Every standard, if it is a true standard, has as its entire (and only) goal set the increasing of relevant
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| 19 | communication between people.
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| 20 | </p><p>
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| 21 | This primary goal cannot be met however, unless the standard is documented. I have been involved in too many
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| 22 | standardization efforts when it became apparent that <span class="emphasis"><em>everybody knows</em></span> was the dominant
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| 23 | emotion of those providing documentation. <span class="emphasis"><em>They</em></span> of the ever present <span class="emphasis"><em>they
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| 24 | say</em></span> and <span class="emphasis"><em>they know</em></span> are the bane of good standards. If <span class="emphasis"><em>they
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| 25 | know</em></span>, why are you doing a standard?
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| 26 | </p><p>
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| 27 | A <span class="emphasis"><em>good standard</em></span> survives because people know how to use it. People know how to use a
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| 28 | standard when it is so transparent, so obvious, and so easy that it become invisible. And a standard becomes
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| 29 | invisible only when the documentation describing how to deploy it is clear, unambiguous, and correct. These
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| 30 | three elements must be present for a standard to be useful, allowing communication and interaction between two
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| 31 | separate and distinct entities to occur without obvious effort. As you read this book, look for the evidence
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| 32 | of these three characteristics and notice how they are seamlessly woven into John's text. Clarity and
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| 33 | unambiguity without <span class="emphasis"><em>correctness</em></span> provide a technical nightmare. Correctness and clarity
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| 34 | with ambiguity create <span class="emphasis"><em>maybe bits,</em></span> and correctness and unambiguity without clarity provide
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| 35 | a <span class="emphasis"><em>muddle through</em></span> scenario.
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| 36 | </p><p>
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| 37 | And this is <span class="emphasis"><em>the rest of the story</em></span> that John couldn't (or wouldn't) bring himself to
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| 38 | state. This book provides a clear, concise, unambiguous, and technically valid presentation of Samba to make
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| 39 | it useful to a user to someone who wants to use the standard to increase communication and the capability
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| 40 | for communication between two or more entities whether person-machine, machine-machine, or person-person.
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| 41 | The intent of this book is not to convince anyone of any agenda political, technical, or social. The intent
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| 42 | is to provide documentation for users who need to know about Samba, how to use it, and how to get on with
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| 43 | their primary responsibilities. While there is pride on John's part because of the tremendous success of
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| 44 | the Samba documentation, he writes for the person who needs a tool to accomplish a particular job, and who has
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| 45 | selected Samba to be that tool.
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| 46 | </p><p>
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| 47 | The book is a monument to John's perseverance and dedication to Samba and in my opinion to the goal of
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| 48 | standardization. By writing this book, John has provided the users of Samba those that want to deploy it to
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| 49 | make things better a clear, easy, and ultimately valuable resource. Additionally, he has increased the
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| 50 | understanding and utility of a highly useful standard, and for this, as much as for the documentation, he is
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| 51 | owed a debt of gratitude by those of us who rely on standards to make our lives more manageable.
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| 52 | </p><p>
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| 53 | </p><table class="simplelist" border="0" summary="Simple list"><tr><td>Carl Cargill, Senior Director</td></tr><tr><td>Corporate Standardization, The Office of the CTO</td></tr><tr><td>Sun Microsystems</td></tr></table><p>
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| 54 | </p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="pr02.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"> </td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="TOSHpreface.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Attribution </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Preface</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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