Last month, IBM made an announcement that put an end to any hope of an open source OS/2. Responding to requests from an online community that had previously collected 11,600 signatures in support of its cause, the company confirmed that they would not be releasing the source code of their OS/2 operating system. I used OS/2 as my main operating system for about four years, and unlike some former users, my reaction to the news sits somewhere between disinterest and relief. What was OS/2? OS/2 was a joint project between Microsoft and IBM to create a business class operating system. Their plan was that Microsoft Windows would be the consumer and small business operating system and OS/2 the system of choice for power users. When Windows version 3 became a huge success, Microsoft decided to ditch Microsoft-IBM OS/2 and instead create a high-end version of Windows called Windows NT. In addition to NT, they would continue a low end version of Windows in parallel to NT. From that point onwards, IBM continued the development of OS/2. Thanks to Microsoft’s genuine acumen combined with their signature ruthless business approach, Windows was soon installed as the default operating system on the majority of brand new PCs. However, OS/2 lead the way in terms of technology. In 1992 IBM released version 2.0 of OS/2, now a full 32 bit multitasking operating system with many innovative GUI features. Windows NT arrived a year later, and when it did arrive, it was arguably inferior to OS/2. Each new release of OS/2 brought with it new leaps in technological sophistication, but by the late 90s IBM had decided that competing in the same market space as Microsoft Windows wasn’t worth bothering with and all but gave up on OS/2. As pulling the plug on OS/2 in a single move would have hurt the businesses who had invested in IBM operating system technology, IBM merely maintained OS/2 from that point onwards. For this reason, although the 1996 release of OS/2 version 4 had introduced new features such as speech recognition, native Java support and a port to the PowerPC architecture, subsequent releases were lacklustre, consisting of tweaks to the kernel and driver updates. OS/2 still has a small but loyal enthusiast community surrounding it, and some members of that community have lobbied IBM to release the source code to OS/2. IBM have a reputation for playing nice with the open source community, and it would be difficult to attribute their decision to an unfriendly attitude to open source software development. Why they can’t release the source At the present time, even if IBM wanted to release the OS/2 source code it would be unlawful for them to do so. This is because they are not the sole owners of every part OS/2. OS/2 started as a joint project between IBM and Microsoft; because OS/2 contains code that belongs to both parties, IBM would have to convince Microsoft to also agree to the release. Microsoft would never do this. Also, it seems probable that other companies, such as Adobe, have some of their work embedded within OS/2. This raises the possibility of a partial source release. Obviously, an incomplete version of the source code would be insufficient to allow programmers to build and then distribute a working version of OS/2. In such a case, programmers would have to expend effort in recreating the missing parts from scratch. This would be a lot of work. Even a partial release would be a lot of work for IBM. There is probably almost no part of OS/2 that doesn’t include at least some code that belongs to other parties. Sorting out which bits are clear for a release would involve a code audit of every single line of the huge OS/2 code base. As much open source goodwill as IBM may have, doing it as a favour to open source community simply isn’t on the cards. Why they shouldn’t release the source In its day, OS/2 was a technology leader. Right up until the mid-90s, IBM pushed OS/2 to the forefront. But since that time, OS/2 has been allowed to languish. In all but a few minor respects, it has fallen behind other, contemporary operating systems. When the last big release of OS/2 was made in 1996, some parts of it were 10 years old. Those parts are now more than 20 years old. Bear in mind that even the very final releases of OS/2 were not solely the product of a ground-up 32 bit design; the final IBM released version of OS/2 still contains a lot of 16 bit code from the earlier version. Having first recreated all of the missing functionality that IBM would have been forced to remove, any future developer would then have to update OS/2. This would also be a huge undertaking. For example, the memory layout is very old fashioned. As a result, reallocating memory between user programs, disk cache and virtual memory while the machine is in use is unwieldy. I’m not surprised – when OS/2 was conceived, the memory needed to even boot would have cost as much as a colour monitor. For decent performance with modern applications, the memory management scheme would have to be implemented from scratch. Multimedia facilities, graphics acceleration, and hardware support are other areas that would need to be addressed. Many of the features that gave it the edge 10 or 20 years ago are no longer relevant. Take the industry leading DOS support as an example: If people want to run old DOS software, they would be better off running it in an emulator such as Qemu or DOSBox. The same could be said for OS/2’s innovative approach to running 16 bit Windows 3 programs. I’ll make a controversial point about OS/2: the GUI has some good features that would sit well in a modern operating system, but it’s not as great as some enthusiasts like to make out. It’s very old fashioned and a lot of work would need to be undertaken to add the features that most people expect from a modern OS. File management is a good example. On a stock OS/2 system, if you start a file copy operation, you can monitor it’s progress in a basic way, but you can’t terminate it. Similarly, there are no tool tips or hints about the file under the cursor or file previews. An OS/2 aficionado might be quick to counter that these things can be added. But that’s part of my point, these add-on utilities are already open source. From a programmer’s perspective, some of the object orientation makes the GUI fairly extensible by third parties. I challenge an OS/2 enthusiast to point out something that has been added to the OS/2 GUI that could not be added to other operating systems. If you don’t believe me, look around on the net for some screenshots of OS/2 in action. It’s simply not as amazing as some people say. In summary, it was a very neat GUI in its day but it has fallen hopelessly behind for modern use. Apart from the GUI, every major subsystem of OS/2 has a modern equivalent that is better and available under a licence that is conducive to free use and open development. Who would benefit from a partial source release? People who lobby in favour of a partial source release never state explicitly who would benefit from such a release. For example, I have heard it stated on the forums that the source code must contain some interesting information about how some still-relevant Microsoft protocols work. Unfortunately, these are the very parts that would have to be removed to form a completely legal source code release. Even if a few useful nuggets could be left in, ask any programmer who is working on a Microsoft interoperability project and they will tell you that they would not want to look at such code. Implementing ideas from such code will open them up to attacks and threats from Microsoft – threats of a sort that have already been directed at open source software. It’s not worth the trouble for the slight possibility of any gain. I have heard people on the forums conjecture that programmers could use the source code to transfer some of OS/2’s GUI features into other operating systems. I don’t think that this is possible. As good as those features may be, the algorithms – and the algorithms are what the source code would reveal – are relatively obvious from observation. Taking a GUI feature from the OS/2 source code and grafting it into another operating system would be nearly impossible to do and far, far more work than implementing a similar feature from scratch. Taking ideas from the OS/2 GUI is a good idea but programmers don’t need see the source code. Things like file formats, protocols, and codecs are the type of thing that programmers appreciate source level access to, and OS/2 doesn’t have anything of that type that anyone would want. Conclusion In its day, OS/2 was my PC operating system of choice. Good performance, cutting edge features, DOS and 16 bit Windows compatibility – what’s not to like? If IBM had maintained the pace of development, it might still be an operating system that I would want to use. Unfortunately, OS/2 is now ten years behind everything else, and it would be a monumental task to update it. Perhaps the world does need a small, client-oriented operating system like OS/2. For people with such a want, I would advise them to look up the impressive efforts of something like Haiku or Syllable. In my opinion, it would take less effort to make these operating systems ready for typical modern application use than to somehow resurrect OS/2, get it working and then rewrite most of it to make it run along more modern lines. About the author: Michael Reed is a freelance writer and geek. Read about his adventures in geekdom on his website.
Is the author even aware of eComstation, which is being developed and maintained by Serenity Systems and IBM?
I am aware of eComStation. I would argue that, like IBM after 1996, they’re maintaining a version of OS/2 rather than developing it further.
Have they even explicitly stated that they have access to the OS/2 source code? If not, the situation is rather like the situation with BEOS and Zeta.
Michael Reed
Edited 2008-02-07 19:44 UTC
“I challenge an OS/2 enthusiast to point out something that has been added to the OS/2 GUI that could not be added to other operating systems.”
you mean:
“I challenge an OS/2 enthusiast to point out something that has been added to the OS/2 GUI that is not available in any other operating systems.”
and yes GUI is something different then a complete OS
Edited 2008-02-07 17:57 UTC
“I challenge an OS/2 enthusiast to point out something that has been added to the OS/2 GUI that could not be added to other operating systems.”
Since most Linux desktops are open source, anything added to the WPS in a purely OO manner could be added to any of those open source desktops in a myriad of ways, OO or otherwise. Having the source is a good thing! 🙂
I always bring up a list of GUI features that I use in the WPS which I miss in other OSes, but nobody else seems to care about:
* Workgroup folders
* The ability to rearrange icons on the desktop in several different ways and then UNDO that rearrange if you didn’t like it.
* The ability to easily locate the parent of a desktop shortcut.
* the ability to individually lock some icons to the desktop while allowing the rest to float.
Not important to some, but like I said I miss those features…
Edited 2008-02-07 20:04 UTC
* The ability to rearrange icons on the desktop in several different ways and then UNDO that rearrange if you didn’t like it.
Trust me, I would love to have that in BeOS/Haiku. Every time I make major changes in my screen resolution my icon arrangement get messed, even when I return back to the original resolution later.
I’d love to see OS/2 open sourced, not that I’d be running it but the more open source the better imho!
I understand the sentiment, but there’s something a little unsettling about that comment coming from “Bit Rapist”. I’m just picturing newly emancipated, naive code coming into the world and getting a crash course in the life’s seedier characters. That poor, poor code never had a chance.
I’m not sure. But isn’t opensourcing a big project like OS/2, a bit waste of resources?
I’m sure it would cost IBM money for the lawyers etc. And the value in the code isn’t that huge since much, if not all, is already available somewhere else in opensource(under various degrees of quality).
Read Myths about eComStation — http://ecomstation.ru/myths
There are some screenshots of eComStation here:
http://ecomstation.ru/projects/eschemes/eschemes-gallery.phtml
By that I mean that I understand there is a group of people that are working on a grass roots open source version of OS/2 just like what Linux Torvolds did with Linux.
Serenity Systems could then plug in each section as it is done into the code that they do have rights to and eventually make a better OS/2 than OS/2.
How many open source OSes are as good at multithreading as even the stock OS/2 kernel was (and is)?
For the longest time, the threading libraries on even commercial UNIX variants were mainly stapled on, and while Linux has had extremely lightweight processes for a long time and is getting better threading all the time, I’m still not convinced that it’s up to OS/2’s level thusfar. Numbers/benchmarks would be something I’d love to see.
How about dynamic process priortization? I would love to see someone benchmark OS/2 versus other kernels when it comes to adjusting UI elements such as the mouse to a higher priority and background tasks to a lower priority on the fly. That type of thing can positively (or negatively) impact the overall “feel” of a system when it’s under load, and the difference between OS/2 and Linux is still relatively easy to discern on slower boxes. Windows, also, is very poor at making such subtle adjustments. I’m speaking subjectively, though, which is probably a poor argument. 🙁
You’re right that much about OS/2 is dated, and even the few areas where it was keeping up until recently (video support) are hurting now because of the loss of SNAP, but there are still core design elements within the OS which I believe are still unequalled in the free software arena, and it isn’t just features related to the WPS.
What I don’t understand is why no-one has tried to just reproduce a clean room version of their favorite OS instead of demanding the owners of the original code to open source?
BeOS will soon live again as Haiku, it has so far taken about 10 years to reach the point that people can see it as a possible replacement OS.
OS/2, AmigaOS and others ‘retired’ OSs that have fans are still older than BeOS, had far larger fan bases at the time of retirement and in some ways simpler code bases to reproduce. Most of these OSs could have already been recreated by now if their fans had spent their time coding instead of demanding the original code base to be opened up.
Actually, less than 7 years so far…
Another worth mentioning could be ReactOS – instead of begging Microsoft to open-source older versions of Windows, it seems far more reasonable to put your efforts behind ReactOS instead.
Actually it might be simpler to implement the OS/2 subsystem in ReactOS than redo it from scratch… (just like DOS, win16 and win32, and POSIX, OS/2 API should be enclosed in a single subsystem).
(actually IIRC it’s called Presentation Manager)
Edited 2008-02-08 00:34 UTC
Okay, I just seems like ten years to me
Hopefully, I will not have a lot of problems transferring my BeOS programming skills to Haiku.
PS. Yes, I know anyone looking at my code on BeBits is saying “What programming skills?”.
“What I don’t understand is why no-one has tried to just reproduce a clean room version of their favorite OS instead of demanding the owners of the original code to open source?”
Possible reasons:
(1) IBM was supporting the OS with bug fixes and with slipstreamed new features (JFS, LVM, USB support, etc) all the way through December 2006, which wasn’t all that long ago, so the OS isn’t quite as “far behind” as some people might think. That includes a number of unofficial kernel updates from sources within IBM (many thanks SG!).
(2) In addition, companies like Serenity Systems and Scitech have been adding fairly substantial improvements to the installation code and to the video cards actively supported, for example, which greatly increased the lifespan of the existing client.
That said, the Voyager Project has been doing what you suggest for a while now.
http://voyager.netlabs.org/en/site/index.xml
Edited 2008-02-07 21:23 UTC
You want to develop something?
Say hello to Haiku,Syllable,Aros,ReactOS along with Linux/Solaris/BSD.
I am not clear what you are trying to say. At this moment I am working to write a number of Open Sourced Apps for Haiku.
My question is where are the other open source replacement projects for older retired OSs that should be mature by now?
However, the point that OS/2 has had a large number of updates right up to 2006 was something I was not aware of. It goes a long way in explaining the problem as that would make OS/2 a moving target.
IMHO, the Workplace Shell (WPS) GUI is the only part of OS/2 worth bringing into the modern age. And I’m only talking about how the WPS worked in general, not a feature or API compatible clone. Other than the SOM’s ability to let you insert classes into the inheritance hierarchy, I think there are much easier methods and better toolkits to use to build such a GUI today.
A big problem of course is that relatively few people have actually used the WPS and don’t understand what was special about it. Maybe IBM could give it away as closed source, but I think that would tick off Serenity.
Perhaps IBM could release for free all developer and user documentation of WPS, so prospective GUI designers could get a better idea of what the WPS did. There’s some docs and a conceptual demo (of CUA) out there here and there, but it’s all rotting away with time.
For those in a nostalgic mood you can fire up Windows 3.1 and add WPS for Windows:
http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n6/wps4win.html
(I helped translate that to Swedish back in the day)
I keep getting perturbed when people like the author keep passing on the misinformation. Microsoft no longer owns OS/2 code. When IBM was going to go the “distribution” route Microsoft signed off on it and IBM went their separate ways. IBM does not want to open source OS/2 for a few reasons, the most important being they don’t want to cannibalize themselves. They support Linux, their software stack, their support staff and I’m willing to put it that over 85% of their customers are Linux customers. Despite the fact that IBM could do a FULL SOURCE RELEASE, it would be a lot of work and IBM doesn’t want to compete against itself. I wouldnt be surprised to later on see a customized version of Linux dubbed OS/2 with with either WPS ported or just a gussied up theme for GNOME. After all OS/2 is a respected brand and thats something to take advantage of.
“Microsoft no longer owns OS/2 code. When IBM was going to go the “distribution” route Microsoft signed off on it and IBM went their separate ways.”
I’d be interested to see any sources you took this information from. According to wikipedia, Microsoft still owns parts of the OS/2 code.
Edited 2008-02-08 09:22 UTC
According to wikipedia […]
What makes you think Wikipedia is a reliable source?
What makes you think Wikipedia is a reliable source?
The wikipedia check process and community makes it to me a bit more reliable than some comment, but I agree it’s not a source of pure truth : That’s why I’d be interested in seeing some real sources. I really meant it, I was not being sarcastic or anything
AFAIR Microsfts ownership of OS/2 is somewhat reduced to HPFS – which by the time of eCS 2.0 being released (It features a bootable JFS) is not really a key feature anymore.
…this reminds me of the situation with Lotus SmartSuite. IBM abandoned that, too, and is now trumpeting “Lotus Symphony” which is basically OpenOffice with a somewhat reworked GUI and a couple of added features. Perhaps IBM isn’t keen to resurrect these dinosaurs because a) it would mean investing money in something very few people use, and b) they don’t want to publicize the failure of their past products any more than necessary. A rather conservative strategy, but an easy one.
Michael Reed is missing something in his article. The petition to open source OS/2 was also signed by several people that uses OS/2 and eComStation. Since they want to keep using this Operating System and the best way to have no dependencies on a single company is to open source it.
Michael Reed is not an OS/2-eCS user, so he misses the point.
There has been new innovative features that were implemented, and introduced, into OS/2 such as client side processing thin clients. In 1999 Work space on Demand using OS/2 ebuisness servers allowed for thin clients to PXE boot 12mb OS images over the network and allow processing to be done on thin client terminals. Allowed for centralized administration of applications and network resources. In 2001 this technology was brought over to NT to allow OS/2 thin clients to be deployed from Windows servers in an NT or Windows domain. Now, in 2007/2008, Dell has incorporated that technology to Windows.
OS/2 also had one of the fastest web servers for it’s time using web sphere on eBusiness.
Also domain management in an OS/2 environment benefited greatly with WPS. All domain management was truly object based. Everything is an object in the domain; Printers, applications, network drives, etc… Need a drive mapping given to a domain group. Just drag that drive resource to that group and all members would have that drive mapped to a specified drive letter. eBusiness servers could also host applications in the domain and users could have applications deployed by simply dragging the application into a user security group. It would then be available on the users desktop. I also preferred how OS/2 deployed network printers and drive shares. Since these resources were not tied to a specific server when mapped to the client you could easily migrate these services from one server to another with out having to change scripts or mappings in the domain. Just update the object in the domain to point to the new server.
Opensourcing Os/2 could bring this technology to other operating systems.
Jim
Let’s see: IBM and Microsoft were business partners, when Microsoft decided to sell DOS, for any machine, thus screwing IBM once by allowing any pc-clone to run DOS. Then MS and IBM started another business partnership, again trusting Microsoft, but why?
IBM What better, fitting way to get even with Microsoft than dumping OS2’s code for download.
What I took away from the article, boiled down, is this:
OS/2, once a leader in the client OS market, is now moribund. As the vendor has little interest in maintaining it, some have requested a source code release. In addition to complicated – and potentially costly – legal concerns that would limit said release, there are many other more ‘modern, up-to-date’ client OS projects that would benefit from the degree of user and developer attention needed to bring OS/2 into the same league. Thus, the desire for a source code release, while probably well-intentioned, isn’t really worth the time and resources needed to make it worthwhile, and should be reconsidered.
Fair enough; the points presented are wholly valid. But they don’t seem to reach a conclusion as to why OS/2 shouldn’t be open sourced, or indeed, why the author is glad that an open source release didn’t happen. It seems to be a brief enumeration of the risks and issues associated with doing an open source release, rather than an exploration of the unfavourable consequences that would result from said release.
In short, what’s the actual downside, for other than IBM? From the article, it seems to be that developers might become ‘tainted’ if working on similar projects, that effort better expended on other OS projects would be diverted towards a resurrected OS/2 instead (with the spread of effort possibly being detrimental in the long run), that it would be a burden on the vendor preparing for release, and that what source could be released would be of little intrinsic value.
If I may play devils’ advocate for a moment, wouldn’t these also be good reasons in favour of an open source release (again, for other than IBM)? Those requesting the release would seem to believe that these concerns are surmountable, and I cannot see any reason as to why their doing so would be a net negative; should there be little interest, the sources will remain mostly disused. And should OS/2 and eComStation end up in the same situation as BeOS did earlier this decade, there are plenty of reasons to believe that a ‘clean room re-implementation project’ would emerge (if the previously noted Voyager project doesn’t already qualify). In the longer term, IBMs’ current business could easily see benefits, assuming acceptable licensing terms.
My interactions with OS/2 have thus-far been confined to one fleeting session in 1998, so I never really got to know the system. As an OS hobbyist of sorts though, I do hope it can live on as long as it is useful for it to do so, rather than being consigned to the archive tapes of history as a fait accompli. I am interested in yours’ (and others’) opinions on this.
A good summary of my article.
Maybe I’m glad that OS/2 hasn’t been released because I’d rather see it die off than linger on like Amiga has.
The harm that would be caused by a source code release is that such a relase would use up resources that could be spent on something more useful. Imagine what could happen if IBM decided to put some funds into Syllable or Haiku for example.
Let’s say a team of programmers somehow built a runnable version of OS/2. They would then have to start building tools to run on OS/2 to add things like desktop search to OS/2. This is programmer time that /isn’t/ being spent on developing things for other platforms.
And all for something that I don’t believe could ever be very good.
Shame that no one who is still in the OS/2 scene has put together an initiative to log all of the useful OS/2 WPS features. They could then organize the process of adding the features back into, say, Gnome.
My main point is that there is very little that could be reused from the OS/2 source code. I notice that no one has posted a list of things that could actually be salvaged from the source code.
Edited 2008-02-10 10:58 UTC
Maybe I’m glad that OS/2 hasn’t been released because I’d rather see it die off than linger on like Amiga has.
IMO, good technology should be preserved if possible and, if not actually reimplemented, then at least used as a measuring stick for comparing and benchmarking more actively developed technologies in similar areas.
There are things which the WPS does from a pure functionality perspective that I’ve never seen in another desktop. Some of those things are admittedly hidden and take some time to find, but some are right on the surface and blatantly obvious — just wander through the config dialogs on an OS/2 or eCS box.
The nice thing about OS/2 and its eCS variant is that it can still be run on mainstream hardware, and that it can still be directly compared to other existing x86 platforms. That should make it easier for people who are curious about it to actually go out and play with it a little.
Shame that no one who is still in the OS/2 scene has put together an initiative to log all of the useful OS/2 WPS features. They could then organize the process of adding the features back into, say, Gnome.
My intial reaction was to flame you for this, but I’m not sure that would be helpful. but what makes you think some of us haven’t been doing this over the past 10 or 15 years???!?
I’ve used Linux from the SLS 0.99 days on forward in parallel with OS/2, and I’ve made ALL KINDS of suggestions to open source desktop projects. Back in the KDE 2.x days I made a series of feature suggestions to the KDE developers based on my years of experience with the WPS, and as far as I could tell my comments and feature suggestions fell on completely deaf ears.
That sort of response from the Linux and related communities (which could be summed up as “if it ain’t a feature from UNIX or Windows, it ain’t worth looking at”) really doesn’t encourage continued interest or participation by OS/2 users in those open source projects.
Want a feature list? Get the eCS demo CD (a Live CD) from the eCS web site:
http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/
There. Now you can view the OS/2 WPS and its settings yourself and make your own list. I’m sick of being ignored, made fun of, and generally derided for choosing to use a demonstrably better GUI.
Ugly? Yes. It is. But frankly, I prefer a lack of anti-aliased fonts to a GUI which doesn’t allow me to easily group programs and documents into logical execution groups, easily extend desktop menus, and quickly locate the parents of my desktop shortcuts.
I don’t use pretty hammers or pipewrenches, either. I want tools that work the way I want them to work.
My main point is that there is very little that could be reused from the OS/2 source code. I notice that no one has posted a list of things that could actually be salvaged from the source code.
Not having the source to SOM, and not being familiar from a programming perspective with SOM, it’s hard for hobbyist users like myself to enumerate its technical advantages.
Given the lack of interest from the Linux community, I also wonder if any substantive effort on my part would be worthwhile. I’ve been saying for 15 years that OS/2 has some nice features which Linux could use, and most of the folks that I say that to simply scoff and move on. You appear to be Yet Another of those people.
Both 4DOS and 4OS2 kick ass on bash and zsh as an interactive shell, really. But open source purists scoff at this and don’t see the benefit of merging visual filemanager functions and classic shell functions the way the SELECT command and 4OS2 visual picklists do. These tools have 20 years of history behind them, but they aren’t from UNIX, so they’re not important. A Linux user would rather stick to a vanilla command line, live with filename globbing limitations in their shells, and use a full filemanager like mc when they need to point-and-shoot at a console instead of being able to easily embed point-and-shoot UIs for file tergetting into their shell aliases and scripts.
What-fscking-ever… Live in the stone ages. I don’t care. I don’t have to. Yet.
Fact is, I still use OS/2 as my primary OS at home, even though I have parallel Linux and Windows installations all over the place on my dozen-machine LAN. Aren’t you folks even curious as to why?
Comparing it to the Amiga. Feh. I’m surprised you didn’t pull out all the guns and compare it to the C64, as I’ve seen done (in an apparently serious manner) in other forums. Even this one in places, I think.
Edited 2008-02-11 21:32 UTC
Does anyone remember that leak of Windows 2000 source codes?
Well there are lots of people who are claiming to seen the sources and I remember to read blog of this one guy who did very accurate analysation of the code.
Althought it didn’t matter much to me but I remember now that he made quite show about how every second source code file included comments like
“This material is owned by IBM” or “OS/2 Source code”
I might remember wrong but that guy had guessed that something like 40% of Windows 2000 sources contained material coded by IBM reseachers and developers for OS/2.
Windows and Os/2 are so tied in that it is just plain impossible to make it Open Source since opening Os/2 would mead almost same thing as opening Microsoft Windows sources.
Ok, I am not sure if people here remember the legal fight between IBM and Microsoft on OS/2 Sources. If I remember right IBM won it and I think that Microsoft promised to clean Windows sources from IBM material but after 5 years there still was OS/2 code in windows.
So they didn’t keep their promise in the end.
And I’m pretty sure that even Windows Vista has at least 20-30% of source code made originally for IBM OS/2
But what bothers me here is that Windows NT originally was called OS/2 3.0 (at the time nt didn’t exist and current version of OS/2 was 2.0, 3.0 was supposed to be completely new architecture, there fore the name. NT, New Technology)
So it might not happen like I descriped here. I guess Wikipedia can tell more. But I’m pretty sure that just plain support for WPS and PM software in win2k devkit doesn’t need more that 2-10% of source code made from Os/2. There is just too much of it.
The happy couple seperated i ’87/’88 – which AFAIR was before IBM began developing OS/2 2.0 (OS/2 2.0 was partly 32-bit, the versions before was 16-bit) and OS/2 has seen heavy rewriting and optimizing in later generations like OS/2 Warp 3.0 (Enterprise) and OS/2 Warp 4.5 Server (Aurora).
The OS/2, and eCS, of today is based on the OS/2 Warp 4.5x Server – both client and server.
I hardly think that there is a great amount of MS code still to be found in OS/2 – also I hardly think that there are a great amount of IBM code to be found in Windows. W2K saw something like a rewrite for about 50mio lines of code.
With W2K Windows became the largest operating system on earth codewise – seing a few million lines of code doesn’t make W2K an OS/2 clone.
Hmmm could it be the code for the Win16 subsystem ?
I didn’t mean it as “a clone” but more like “relative” bastard children made outside the marriage.
And no, Os/2 3.0 is these days known as WinNT. But I’m pretty sure that there is a long, long, long way to Vista’s level from WinNT 3.0
Wikipedia says following: – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2#Breakup
I don’t say that it can be completely trusted but it tells something about the background of WinNT.
To me Windows has always seem to be prototype of an upcoming operating system. It’s funny to notice that it is more than the truth here.
I have used OS/2 since the 1.0 release on a PS/2 286 with a wopping 4 MB of RAM and since OS/2 4.0 I haven’t seen any OS coming close to the multitasking and multithreading performance OS/2 delivered.
The stability of the OS was always guaranteed whether or not a program crashed. I haven’t found this capability in any other OS so far, not in BSD, not in Linux variants and alas certainly not in Windows.
If there is one thing other OS’s could learn from OS/2 it is the multithreading and multitasking model incorporated in OS/2. Outdated? Maybe. Surpassed? Not even close.
I have to agree with you. Os/2 is rock stable. Just like most of Unix variants. I know person who used to run it from version 3.0 to version 4.0 on small server. I’ve hear lots of stories of his “OBallGr.Zero”-server.
If his story is true, longest perioid operating system /2 was able to keep on going was 1,5 years without rebooting.
I have the Os/2 Warp 3.0 floppies I got from him. I haven’t been able to run it since I lack the hardware.
-_-;
PS. If somebody wants to see the package I’ve got picture of it in my Flickr.
Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7839370@N06/486279217/