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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.
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.
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.
Is that you can't Open Source the entire Operating System, and at this point it would cost more to perform the code audit and legal audit to make this happen that it would to simply take the black eye of killing it. If you think about it, it makes sense. OS/2 is, and never was, just the operating system. Think back to installing OS/2, especially in the pre 4.0 days. You didn't just install OS/2, you also installed LAN Server (or LAN Manager in earlier days), TCP/IP for the Internet, eventyually you got MMPM and others, but these are all seperate packages that are more or less bolted onto the core. It's probably reasonable to release parts of OS/2, but you can't release all of it, particularly the parts licensed from third parties. That's the real kicker. In order to Open Source OS/2 in the sense that most people want is a logistical nightmare that would encompass years and a cost that IBM would have no hope of ever recovering. So what is the next best option? release the source for the important parts. SOM ? can't because of Microsoft licensing. WPS? can't, Adobe PostScript font rendering engine. Those are just items from the top of my head, and I haven't used OS/2 in close to 10 years now. It's a nice dream, but it's unlikely to ever happen. kanga