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                 Release Notes for Samba 3.1.0
                           Sept 24, 2004
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Welcome to the first release of the 3.1.0 development branch.  
This is an unstable release series intended only for use by 
testers and developers.  We make no claims as to whether it even 
works.

The purpose of the 3.1.x releases is similar to what we've used 
the 'alpha' tag for in the past.  These are unstable, development 
releases that may beat you up and take your lunch money.  We make 
no guarantees. But the 3.1 tree will also has some new experimental 
features that may entice you to take a look (we hope).

Samba 3.1.0 will include changes to winbindd (for scalability), 
code for implementing NT privileges, some proposed fixes to 
the printing code's background queue update daemon, and others.

So invariably, the question will arise what is the relationship 
between Samba 3.1 and Samba 4?  The answer is that Samba 3.1 is 
continuation of the Samba 3.x series in an effort to foster further 
development.  Team members are still working on Samba 4 and we will 
ship that once it is ready.

Samba 3.1.x is just a platform for implementing newer features 
that could potentially destabilize the 3.0.x tree (and delay 
the necessary bug fix releases).  Once features stabilize in 
Samba 3.1, they will be considered for back porting to the Samba 
3.0 tree.  If 3.1.x gets a large number of new features that are 
not suitable for back porting to 3.0, then we will create a stable 
3.2 series of releases and start the process over again.

Our code, Our Bugs, Our Responsibility.

				Sincerely,
				-- The Samba Team
