Some OS/2 fans are circulating a petition asking IBM to open the OS/2 source code. You can sign it here. Though IBM has become a good neighbor in the open source community, there are sometime tricky issues involved in open sourcing commercial software. For instance, IBM’s one-time collaborator in OS/2, Microsoft, may still own some of the OS/2 technology, and may not want to see it open sourced. Nevertheless, make your voice heard. It can’t hurt.
I hope this happens. I used OS/2 back when Microsoft was only offering Windows 3.1. It was far better than Windows (and still is in my opinion). The only problem being the lack of software for it. If it was open sourced, perhaps more people would be willing to create software for it.
Trying out different operating systems is a hobby of mine. I personally like Linux quite well and use it on my main computer. However, if any OS ever came close to kicking Windows out of the limelight, I think this one is it. OS X would be a condtender too if they ported it to the x86 platform. Nudge nudge wink wink.
I hope this happens in part. I currently use eComstation, which is an updated form of OS/2 as most readers of this site would know. My only concern would be what kind of license, if it were Open Sourced it would fall under. I would like to see development of this awesome Operating System pick up some more steam than it currently has. Either way this will be interesting to watch what happens.
This petition or one like it has been circulating for a couple of years now. IBM is pretty hamstrung on this though. Huge portions of that codebase are tied to 3rd party licenses and that would prevent the OSS delivery of the OS/2 codebase.
Key parts, VoiceType (Lernout & Hauspice), Java (Sun), ATM (Adobe), and of course the Windows 3.1 code that exists.
Andy
I would think that having the Win 3.1 code (if any) replaced by the OSS comunity would be a great advantage
Got ver 3 connect at GOODWILL FOR $19.99 Never opened. It is a nightmare finding fixpacks, trying to install drivers. 16 colors @ 640×480 suck. What is a real shock is min mem 4 meg. At 16 meg flys. This alone is worth getting it back in the lime lite.
I remember learning OS/2 programming in school in 1995. It was, and i believe still is, a much better OS than Windows 95/98/ME.
That said, IBM is not likely to release the source. The reason is because some of the source code belongs to Microsoft (stemming from 1989-1992 when MS and IBM worked on OS/2 together). Even if that wasn’t the case, IBM still has a lot of large organizational customers that still use OS/2. IBM still has to support those customers and it would be hard to do that if they relinquish ownership of the source code.
Id’ still like to see it, but I’m not bettin’ the farm on it…
Some of the code belongs to Amiga… they gave away some of the User Interface code in exchange of the Rexx scripting language and license for use in Amiga Workbench…
I hope open sourcing OS/2 will happen, since it is one of the best operating systems ever written for the PC… too bad of the bad marketing of IBM… The same happened years before with the Amiga and the bad marketing of Commodore and later Escom… yuck!…
i miss those good old days… :oP)
Who gives a shit about this ?
No matter how much arm twisting the user base tries (and that includes the corporate user base), IBM isn’t going to open source OS/2. Aside from the inevitable problems it would
have fixing code that was subsequently open sourced (IBM uses OS/2 to sell its hardware and banking applications; they surely don’t want someone else mucking with the code),
IBM doesn’t even own enough of the code to make what they do own very usable with the other stuff pulled out. A quick example of this is the 32-bit version of HPFS, HPFS386.
This is the most robust incarnation of OS/2’s High Performance File System, but guess who owns it? Microsoft. I’m not sure if Microsoft owns the 16-bit HPFS or not, but JFS is
not able to boot OS/2, and the thought of having to boot from a FAT volume just to get the OS up and on it’s feet isn’t very appealing to me.
For perhaps a better take on this open source concept, look into Lynn Maxin’s Warpicity Proposal. Lynn suggests replacing bits and pieces of OS/2 over time with open source (or
controlled source, obtained by paying an annual fee, of sorts) code. This is akin to the way in which IBM releases fixpaks for OS/2, overlaying the older code with new modules
tested to work together. Of course, the drawback here is the immense manpower required to develop and test all these replacement modules and their interaction with the existing
code…
Lewis
PS – Jack, I give a s–t. Many of us use OS/2 on a daily basis, and comments such as yours show only one thing: your ignorance.