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Posted on 07/18/2005 8:48:43 PM PDT by N3WBI3
Fans of IBM's OS/2 operating system are petitioning the company to open source the discontinued operating system, or least portions of it.
A petition on the OS/2 World website, which is signed by over 8000 people, argues that an open source version of OS/2 will ensure that current users will be well served.
"Customers that are willing to continue using OS/2 will get the benefits of an open OS that will be continuously developed by individual developers and/or software companies, their ownership fees will decrease and they will have the enhanced security of an OS that will continue to be relevant due to the open-ended nature of open source (following the BSD and Linux examples)," the petition states.
An IBM spokesperson on Monday threw cold water on the idea, however.
"We looked at it. But there were a number of third-parties involved in OS/2 over the years and decades, which means there's a tangle of legal and contractual issues. So it's not very easy to do," said IBM spokesman Steve Eisenstadt. "It's not going to happen."
Aware of some of the legal complexities in potentially open sourcing OS/2, the authors of the petition have called on IBM to just release those pieces that don't have any legal strings attached. "What we ask of IBM is to release as much of the source as possible and list the OS/2 components that need an Open Source replacement."
In theory, those missing "holes" in OS/2 will be filled in by open-source developers.
OSS PING
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Many, many operations in my field were based in OS/2, but have been forced to move to Win2k3 due to withdrawn support. The OS seems rather handy at some tasks.
I imagine there are still people who calculate by moving small stacks of chips around on a checkered cloth too.
So9
What industry made that much commitment to OS/2?
Just wondering....
Oops pardon the bad cut/paste... goddamed windows platform ....
I was wondering about that...
What I'd like to see is for them to open source just SOM/WorkplaceShell.
I wish they would put Lotus Smart Suite up as OSS. Lotus Word Pro is a great word processor. It would destroy MS Word if it was open source.
Ami Pro (Word Pro's predecessor) was the first true windows word processor and really was more object oriented than anything else for years.
I still keep a copy on my XP system.
WTF does your italicized quote have to do with this thread?
Just wondering...
8^)
See my #6.
Technical details: Fat fingered the keyboard. ;-)
ROFL. $#@!$#@ shortcuts!
"BIG BLUE AKBAR! LONG LIVE THE IBMLAMIST JIHAD!"
ROFLMAO!
Financial services for banking back-room operations. Loan servicing software, telephone banking, proof-machines, etc.
IBM's Linux and Browser investments exceed $1.5 Billion.
Even though we've talked about this matter for years, ain't no easy way that IBM will let OS/2 become open freeware to compete with IBM's Linux investment.
Sadly, that means that Linux has had to re-invent the wheel, poorly, with sub-par financing and industry commitments. OS/2's last Warp IV and Server products were ahead of their time, actually (back in say, 1999).
Linux, oops, OS/2 as open source freeware, would have been 6 years ahead of itself today had IBM thought to simply release OS/2 and develop it as open source freeware instead of almost starting from scratch with Linux way back when.
But besides competing against itself today, IBM still fears MicroSoft...and MSFT developed some of OS/2 and retained some rights to it...further chilling IBM's enthusiasm for ever releasing OS/2.
That, and the revenues for OS/2 that still come in to IBM to this very day from Asian banking clients.
A poor workman always blames his tools. =)
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