1) gnads stands for 'gnads is not active directory service'

2) it is pronounced like 'nads'

3) it aims to be a directory service, like novell's nds or microsoft's active directory: a distributed directory service that can be accessed through LDAP

as a frequent user of microsoft products, it saddens me to see some of the free software movement bludgeoned by those in the corporate/government world for lack of solid enterprise features. considering that even Microsoft is a relative newbie when it comes to a true directory service, this is disheartening. after working with active directory for about two years, i think i've come to appreciate its strengths and deride its weaknesses, particularly in respect to other microsoft products that use/ignore it while duplicating its effort, like SMS. this project will be dedicated towards developing a free software solution that not only can perform as well as active directory or nds, but far better, without relying upon a single OS the way active directory does. nds is superior, yet even it is not open.

gnads needs to meet several goals in order to surpass active directory and nds. it must be easy to install on a variety of platforms; it must scale to over ten thousand resources with no problems; it must be distributed, and there must be no single point of failure; it must be extensible, so that future alterations to the directory schema may be easily made; it must incorporate as much information as possible about each resource, yet not overburden queries with such information; it must be fast, for both searches and regular access; it must provide a secure means of authentication. these goals are not easily met: ms and novell spent years assembling their respective directory services. hopefully, the inclusion of many developers will help speed this project along so that it can displace Active directory before it becomes a de facto standard.

ideally, a gnads client/server system could be setup in a few minutes; the client would poll the particular workstation it was installed on, adapting itself to the particular environment it was in, and reporting the environment back to the directory itself: thus, features which are often only done through add-ons to NDS or active directory, like inventory management or user access tracking, could be incorporated into the directory itself! if i had a small office containing two macs, three win9x machines, two win2k machines and a linux and netbsd box, (plus a linux server for gnads!), i could install the client on each machine, point it to the local gnads server, and instantly watch the directory become populated with information about each workstation. after adding a list of users and groups into the gnads server, users could log onto each box and access features of the directory; as each user logged in, that information would also be added to the directory. through gnads then (in this hypothetical scenario) one could access a list of programs installed on each system, monitor a user's usage, etc. it would quickly become the end point around which all the services were oriented. this is the goal of gnads: ambitious, but possible.

This is a profile of dredwerkz editor Helena.

Helena was born in the best month ever, October. She has fought vigorously for the good folks in the environment ever since her departure from the best college ever, which awarded her a degree in a field almost as useless as one of Brad's fields. Between saving the environment and partying like a rock star, she also found time to write a few articles, although not as many as Edward might have hoped.

Helena also possesses the honorary title of "Grammer Queen". Her crown and sceptre were obtained years ago, and occasionally she lends their expertise to Edward for any particular challenging written conundrums.

Helena was and still is a good person. Unfortunately, she has departed the dredwerkz for life in the great beyond. She used to live in the salmon room (scroll down to the salmon colored room pictures) and it was decorated with much more style than it is currently.

Helena has much better hair than her namesake: Marla Singer. She has been known, on occasion, to do the Blossom Hair Toss (from The Mane Event) if you ask politely.

This is Brad's profile.

Brad also received a fine education along with Helena and Edward, but unlike them, chose to seek higher learning at an insitution a short masspike trip away in the local cursed metropolis. In between his stints of studying, he found time to amass a series of friends too cool to list, a job most would die for, and stories too ribald and/or unbelievable for polite conversation.

Despite being run over by a car outside the 'werkz, playing soccer after a bad knee injury until he required surgery and consuming enough over-the-counter drugs to doom his liver to early failure, Brad still found time to neglect changing the oil in his car (every 3000 what?) until it died in an untimely accident.