OS/2 Community Tries Bounty System

Grayskull writes "The OS/2 and eComStation community are trying to get open source software ported to that platform by opening bounties and allowing people to chip in with prize money. Currently the most important open bounties are Java 6 port, Icon routines in OS/2, VirtualBox port, Extend multimedia and OpenWengo ports."

Comments

Re:Team OS/2!

[motherjoe]

Ahh show some respect. :)

Long before there was talk of Linux supplanting Windows, it was OS/2.

I was one of them, from version 2 through Warp 4. Let the Star Trek puns rain down on me for that one! :)

Take care all.

Just my .02 worth :)

What does OS/2 offer today?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used OS/2 Warp a long time ago. It was good, in its day. But why do people still use it late 2008?

Is it love?

Are there any technical advantages?

If it is because of a key legacy application instead of getting stuff ported to OS/2 maybe that application should get ported to the other OSs?

Not the whole OS, but large subsystems can be

[Anonymous Coward]

What IBM could do:

1) Open-source the code it owns

2) Binary-blob all non-royalty-bearing code it doesn't own.

3) Sell the complete package including royalty-bearing code for the cost of royalties plus a small markup to cover business expenses.

4) Repeat for older versions

They've already all but open-sourced JFS. If memory serves, the version of JFS in the final version of Warp Server had much the same code as the version that found its way into Linux.

Re:Or...

[david@ecsd.com]

I remember when I first fired up the Workplace Shell in v. 2.1. Everything was interconnected, and theoretically would Just Work--hell it worked better than Windows 3.11. But the problem was that everything was dependent upon "and ifs".

Want to print a document? Just drag its icon to the printer icon and if your word processor is written right, the document will print without having to start your word processor.

Don't like the color of your terminal window? Drop a color from the color palette to the window and if its written right, it'll not only change to the color you want, but the program will remember!

That's just scratching the surface; hpfs, multimedia, Christ, even the GNU tools all ran under OS/2 (heck, that's how I discovered tcsh, which has been my command line shell for longer than I've known *nix!).

Of course history chose the winner. The WPS was the Win 95 shell done right. It took MS, what, 6 years? to get Windows to the stability of OS/2. Alas, OS/2 is now a corpse. I understand it's still being used, but not to the extent that it could have been. OS/2 was elegant, and Win 95 brutish--having the feel of someone trying to forge the Mona Lisa with a Crayola. Of course, time marches on, and I was able to dodge the Microsoft tax all throughout college by using Linux, which has slowly pulled itself up to start feeling vaguely like the WPS. KDE 4.2 and its promise of further integration of ... stuff has my curiosity piqued. You're right, though, OS/2 is dead, and people should be looking to migrate their software to something a little more modern.

Linux ate OS/2 market share IMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a very fanatical OS/2 user. Not fanatical in a zealotish way but fanatical in that I liked doing all I needed on my PC using OS/2. Some minor issues which couldn't be done were usually easily solved when opening up OS/2 Windows. Another issue is that I actually paid for my sofware. And OS/2 knew some great software packages! If you like GQView these days; I was using something very similiar long before we even heard from Gnome and KDE.

But it became awfully tricky when IBM dropped support for OS/2 and eventually I made the jump fully to Linux. Right now I'm very happy with Ubuntu using a KDE desktop. And the fact that it doesn't have to cost me much is naturally a very welcome benefit as well.

Now, this was years ago. I sometimes try to install my Warp and Merlin CD's in some kind of virtual machine but mostly to no avail (I did got Warp running though). However, I have tried a few of the ComStation live cd's to see what it was all about. And quite frankly; it doesn't manage to impress me one bit. Sure; its a nice revival of the old OS/2 but its main problem (IMO ofcourse) is that it didn't go along with recent developments but instead got stuck somewhere in the last century.

Now; bear with me. I can understand that the developers can only do so much with it. But it would have been a lot better if they would have tried to utilize other people's researches and developments as well. OS/2 had some very powerfull desktop enhancers. Some of those even managed to build an entire business out of their single product because.. it actually sold (I bought several copies myself as well). But.. None of that on eComstation. The interface is basically the same as what we were used to, but which most of us have most likely outgrown.

So instead of wasting money on projects like these I'd think that money would be better put into OS development. But even that might not be enough to get back much of the marketshare. Lets face it; Linux has ate up a lot of marketshare. I sure wouldn't even consider going back anymore. So my stance on this? "Too little, too late", even though I admire the effort.

They should port the OS/2 API to Linux

[LordNimon]

I used to be a OS/2 user, but I stopped about 4 years ago. I sympathize with the OS/2 community, because it was my geek "home" for a while, but they're going about it all wrong. I tried to convince them a long time ago, but they never listened.

The OS/2 kernel is seriously outdated. Hardware support is minimal, and the kernel itself is just dated. It's mostly 16-bit. So there's no reason to keep it. A few people insist that the OS/2 kernel is "nicer" or "better" than the Linux kernel is some way, but these people don't know anything about kernels. It's a stupid argument.

The OS/2 community should port the OS/2 API to Linux. This will allow them to run the WPS (the illustrious GUI that OS/2 users rave about) and every other OS/2 application. This would be a one-time effort, because the API is stable. It hasn't been updated in almost 10 years. Not only that, but it's very well documented

Instead, these guys keep trying to port Linux applications to OS/2. If every OS/2 developer dropped what he was doing and worked on porting the OS/2 API, they'd be done in about a year. They would never have to ask for any more help ever again. The user base would actually grow, even. They'd be able to use all of their applications forever, even on newer hardware. Device support would never be a problem. Even businesses that are based on OS/2 would start moving to Linux. It would be win-win for everyone.

In fact, the WPS might even become quite popular. Someone might try to make an open source version of it, and it might even become a replacement GUI for Linux, competing with Gnome and KDE.