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User Group Urges IBM To Open OS/2
axonis writes "A report on Tom's Hardware tells of one of the last active OS/2 user groups, which has announced an initiative to garner support for IBM to release its long-neglected OS/2 operating system into the open source community. IBM announced earlier this month that it will withdraw its operating system OS/2 officially from sale on December 23 this year and will offer support only through 2006." From the article: "Making OS/2 Open Source will benefit all IBM customers that had invested in this OS...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)."
Either you think IBM hasn't thought about releasing OS/2 or that IBM is missing a business opportunity.
The cold hard fact is that IBM can't release the source code. So many non-disclosure agreements have sealed the fate of OS/2. The only good thing that can come from OS/2s demise is that people will think very carefully before going into software that has a shelf life with no possibility of saving.
Competition!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I would imagine that OS/2 may contain proprietary code that IBM is still using in products that it still supports. If that's the case, the chances of OS/2 being open sourced are pretty much nil.
If OS/2 truly contains nothing but obsolete code that IBM no longer has any use for, then they might do this to throw a bone to the Open Source community, but it might not be of much use to anyone but OS/2 zealots.
This has been covered a million times. Due to all the code they share because it was a joint project with Microsoft, it'll never be opened. Pieces probably could be, but I doubt IBM will spend the time or effort to decide what's theirs and whats microsofts and rip it apart.
But diversity is always good, and what does IBM have to lose?
Nothing. It's all the other companies (i.e. Microsoft) that have IP bundled with OS/2 that will lose.
Thus it's pointless to dredge up this discussion again and again (yes, I believe this is at least the third time in many years).
No matter how much IBM would love to open it up to us, they just can't. Go whine to Microsoft and the 100s of other code contributers first.
Tell me if I am wrong, but to me it looks like the same thing as many windows users asking to see the source code of, say, windows 95? There is almost 0% chance of this occuring, so why bother posting it on /.?
+1 funny, -2 overrated. Life isn't fair.
Surely the code contains proprietary software that IBM doesn't want to open source, but that doesn't mean that they can't open up the rest. Part of the magic of open source is that people will write the necessary software to fill those gaps.
However, I can't see IBM releasing the source until after December 23rd. It's not until that point that OS/2 becomes immediately unprofitable. If IBM holds up its promise to support OS/2 through 2006, then the source will hit the ground running and be able to get help from its parents while the teachers begin to take over, thus the transition from closed to open goes well and is supported by the original developers, even if only for a year.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
all the ATM machines that still use OS/2...releasing the code for a product that handles money is probably not the wisest of ideas...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I'm sure that as I type a hundred people will have posted the reasons why IBM could not open the code even if they wanted to (Microsoft co-own it, etc), but I personally think opening it would not really benefit many people. The code-base is years old and an attempt to getting it running on newer hardware would probably be doomed to failure so, since a lot of the reasons people like it was the GUI design of the thing, why not just clone it and re-implement all the great ideas? I wouldn't be at all surprised if a re-write of the shell on top of Linux/ BSD wouldn't take a lot less time and effort than dragging an ancient code-base into the 21st century and torturing it into something that works well on current hardware.
Yeah, it would never happen, because, as you mention, there are too many NDAs, restrictive licenses and copyrights tied up in OS/2's code.
Which is a shame, really, because releasing the source would not only give eternal life to OS/2, it would also vastly improve the other free software out there by allowing them to integrate (or at least port) portions of OS/2 to their systems. Linux might be able to add support to run OS/2 binaries or learn how its scheduler handles pre-emptive or realtime tasking.
Unfortunately, since OS/2 is closed source, the product will eventually die off when the hardware that can run it becomes obsolete. This is one of the real unfortunate sides to closed source software -- when its owner abandons it, it's dead.
IBM has been championing Linux for servers for quite a while now. By creating demand for Linux based servers, IBM creates a customer base that excludes the MSFT/DELL alliance and creates a base for their lucrative service contracts. Any success an open-sourced OS/2 would have would distract from this.
It's very important for companies' initiatives to be well-focused. If IBM released OS/2 to the community, they will dilute their Linux marketing campaign and further fragment the customer base they are trying to build. If OS/2 took off like mad, that would be yet another OS that IBM has to qual test it's servers with. While I have fond memories of using OS/2 and realize that many of its innovations are standard features in today's operating systems, I wouldn't want it polluting the OS base for all time to come. And apparently, neither does IBM.
IBM has already raided the OS/2 code base for projects that it felt would be helpful to be released as open source. While it would be neat if they could release the WorkPlace Shell or the OS/2 2.1 SMP kernel as open source, if they haven't done it by now, there is probably a good reason such as the code being tainted with third party licences.
I have to disagree. Opening the source and documenting how the overall O/S interfaces with parts that are missing wouldn't "taint" OSS developers who had never seen that code. For example, I call X routine (which contains MS code) and returns Y data. Let the OSS people figure out how to get the expected results. This is the very reason software patents are bullshit. Granted if IBM signed IP agreements it's on them, however they can find a way around it if they so desire*.
* This is the question.
In short, this pretty much nails OS/2's coffin closed.
Regardless, there isn't much I can think of that OS/2 offered that the Linux distros don't by way of the GUI. Toolbox? Use GNOME panels and drawers. Fixpaks? Don't need to download and install - Mandrake has URPMI, Debian (and debian based) has APT, and Gentoo has emerge, and all three do that for you. Workplace shell? Nautilus does a good job.
I'm going to miss the old half-an-OS, though - it was a damn good product that didn't crash without a good reason, and would've beaten Windows 95 if it weren't for poor marketing.
This sig no verb.
Why do people want to save OS/2? Why has it stuck around this long? Isn't there some other, better operating system around that fills whatever niche OS/2 satisfied?