Slashdot Mirror
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)."
It was originally a colaboration between MS and IBM. So chances are MS owns some of the code.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
They really have nothing to gain from open sourcing OS/2 and potentially a lot to lose from doing so.
If Solaris is any example, it costs money to open source code. You have to pay someone to scour the code for inappropriate or confidential information.
Lawyers need to work through any licensing agreements with third parties and so forth.
They're potentially exsposing themselves to lawsuits by showing their knickers to the world. I mean for all we know OS/2 could be filled with stolen UNIX source code and the last thing IBM wants is to actually validate SCO's claims!
Bottom line is that IBM has nothing to gain from spending (wasting?) money to open source OS/2. It's a shame, but that's life.
I was at an ATM in a convenience store last summer during a thunderstorm. The power went out and when it came back on, I watched the ATM boot. Guess what? OS/2. There is no way that IBM's lawyers are going to let that code loose so that people can pick it apart. Just the suggestion probably gives them visions of a pony-tailed hacker going from ATM to ATM and filling his Volkwagon mini-bus with cash.