When are older features integrated?

[Guybrush]

Greetings,

I have one question: When I look at the feature matrix here (http://www.freenas.org/category/version-comparison), then I see there are some (at least for me) important features missing, like fuppes and transmission, and as I heard, also Active directory integration.
Maybe i missed something, but does somebody knows more?

Thanks mates,
Johannes

 

[jgreco]

Yes. FreeNAS 8 is basically a ground-up rewrite based on NanoBSD (an embedded variant of FreeBSD) instead of a full FreeBSD system. It's tricky to change from FreeBSD 7 to FreeBSD 8; it's trickier to not only make that jump but also to completely change the underlying paradigm and ways of thinking.

Further, I *suspect* that the FreeNAS developers - who also develop the commercial TrueNAS product - are first working on getting the commercially viable parts of the NAS stable and reliable, because TrueNAS is what pays the bills, and FreeNAS rides along for something like a kind-of free ride. It'd be a mistake from a business point of view to prioritize entertainment and file sharing features, mostly desired by home media buffs who are not buying TrueNAS, over replication and iSCSI features that businesses will pay for. Profitability is the best thing to wish for iXsystems.

Patience is a virtue. Quite frankly, given the potential complexity of it all, I'm kind of impressed at the progress that they are making.

Of course, you're free to develop a feature yourself and contribute it to the community. That's not un-do-able, especially for some of the stuff that's basically just repackaging FreeBSD packages with some GUI work.

 

[ProtoSD]

@Guybrush,

I think they're planning to add the ground work for plugins and features you're familiar with from FreeNAS 7 in release 8.1 sometime next year.