I've used NovaStor products for many, many years (can you say OS/2 backup software?). I've had good results with them, including with calls to tech support and customer service.
I think you'd be pretty happy with them, though I haven't used their software recently. I guess I'll have to give them another look!
Our client had exactly the same results with the same printer. Died after 500 pages. Of course, that happened 3 months out of warranty, and Xerox told us we were out of luck.
I've also had problems with HP color lasers. Open one up: there is toner *everywhere* inside. Very messy, and goes through drums quickly.
My personal favorite has been Lexmark's Optra color lasers. They are squeaky clean inside, and cheaper per-page than an HP. YMMV, of course, but I've had much success with them.
That was supposed to be, "What's [random single-digit number] plus [random single-digit number]?". You can't use less-than and greater-than in HTML, and I'm too lazy to type the stupid code things...
The Turing Test is a test that attempts to determine when a computer is a reasonable facimilie of a person: so that a human would not be able to distinguish between them.
The Turing test part is not the challenge/response of a human. It's the fact that the SPAMMER's computer is able to pass what is a test for a human: the audio has to be so garbled that even a human can't understand it. In the area of voice recognition, computers are able to pass the Turing test.
Of course, they could do something like give you verbal instructions: What's plus ? Mix in a variety of operators, even different types of questions (what it today's date? What is yesterday's date? What country started World War II?) and you'd have a tough test for a computer to pass...
This is *exactly* what was done to add the "color-shifting ink" on U.S. Currency.
A company attempted to put a hologram on a bill. However, one of the tests it had to pass was a test that crushed the currency. This broke down the intereference pattern, destroying the hologram. So, they got the idea of chopping up the hologram into tiny bits, mixing it into an ink-type base and applying it to the bill that way.
And this is why 10 to 20% of H2 will not leak out like it might with Gasoline.
First of all, you don't pump hydrogen out of the ground. You have to make it, and you can control how you do so. Second, because it can be made anywhere there's an electric power plant, you don't have to ship it halfway around the world in supertankers. Second, it's *extremely* explosive. The cost of leaking even a small part of the amount you're moving is death in a fiery inferno.
All-in-all, I think they'll reduce the leakage before H2 becomes practical...
In the US, we have the idea of severability. That's written up in *every* contract that I've ever seen.
Something like, "If one part of this contract is deemed unenforcable, this does not affect the remaining terms of this Agreement."
I believe that without that, an entire contract could be tossed out if only part of it were unenforcable. But seeing as every contract I've ever seen has it, it doesn't so much matter.
We *still* have clients using TR! Most of them are just waiting for the devices (usually embedded into expensive pieces of equipment) to die before they rip out that last bit of TR. One of them still has their 1000-computer network running TR, with an ATM backbone and connections to servers (155Mb and up!).
They've even tried migrating to Ethernet. They will switch a division from time to time, but they've found that Ethernet actually costs them more: they have to buy new Ethernet switches compared to the cost of continuing with TR (which for them is near zero, with an inventory of 100Mb cards and CAU's already purchased), and it buys them pretty much nothing. So until there's an actual reason to, they're staying TR...
Before 1993 or so and the advent of Switched Ethernet, Ethernet would melt down under the weight of its own traffic. 40% traffic for Ethernet is an emergency situation. I've seen TR networks hum along with 80-90% utilization and the users barely know.
Token Ring has built-in QoS. It has several levels of error monitors. These are things that are kind of added by switches, but are not a fundamental part of the topology. And if you don't have a *good* switch, you don't even have that.
Of course, in the early 90's Ethernet cards were under $100 and Token Ring cards were $400. *That's* why Ethernet won. Not speed: TR was doing 16MBit when Ethernet could only do 10, and remember, I can acually *get* 16Mbit from TR, instead of 4Mbit with Ethernet. Today, with good switches, I don't miss TR too much. But before switches...
Maybe that's why many, many very large organizations were using TR even into the early '90's. Try running 300 computers on unswiched 10Mbit Ethernet (the best Ethernet had then)...
No, that's pretty much the definition of vapor: a product that never shipps. Not that doesn't exist at some level, but never ships.
I've seen OS/2 for PowerPC, though I was not fortunate to have run it myself. However, it never existed as a product; hence, vaporware.
Interestingly, there are a *ton* of products that IBM has built all the way to the point where the are ready to ship, but never shipped them. There's a good reason. When IBM ships something, they then must support it. Nearly forever. The cost of a product is not so much the cost of building it, but the cost of supporting it. That's one reason why OS/2 PPC never shipped.
Of course, there's another reason: by the time it was ready, it was obvious that there wasn't a hardware platform to run it on, and there wasn't going to be a platform. IBM wasn't interested in running OS/2 PPC on RS/6000 hardware: AIX was already there. They wanted it to run on PREP/CHRP PC's: what IBM saw as the next consumer/standard business PC. But by the time OS/2 PPC was ready, PREP and CHRP were dead.
It's too bad. I would love to be typing this on a PPC running OS/2... Instead it's a Thinkpad running Windows 2000... Sigh.
That's in fact why Apple is in the hurt they're in.
They signed a deal with Motorola to only buy from Motorola any chips that Motorola builds. IBM has faster G3 and G4 processors than Motorola, but Apple can't buy them. Why? Their deal.
Why doesn't Motorola ramp up the speed of the G4? AltiVec. AltiVec is *critical* for things such as DSP operations. It's AltiVec that makes PPC a powerful option for switch and router designers and other embedded marketplaces. These applications don't need 2GHz CPU's, they need efficient 400MHz CPU's. Motorola focuses on that marketplace. And *that* is why Apple can't get a CPU faster than 1.2GHz.
IBM, though, builds lots of PPC computers: AS/400's and RS/6000's (excuse me: eServer i-series and eServer p-series). They need fast CPU's, and they don't care about the DSP garbage. Though it seems that with the 970 they've included both.
IBM is another of those companies that fabless chipmakers (such as Cyrix, when they were building chips) came to when they needed extra capacity. IBM makes an unbelievable number of chips, from PPC processors to x86 processors (there are still a *lot* of embedded designs that use 80186's, for example) to memory controllers, to you name it.
In fact, AMD doesn't have a lot of capacity for their own stuff. Their biggest problem is on the high end:.13 micron fabs. They have lots of lower-end fab capability, but it's unlikely that Apple needs that kind of capacity...
It was the 615, and it never saw the light of day.
The early days of PPC were wild. Apple and IBM working together on hardware and software (Taligent and Pink, some of which got rolled into OS/2's System Object Model). The possibility of running OS/2, Windows *and* MacOS all on the same computer all at the same time via Microkernel... Cool stuff.
A lot of things were attempted but never worked. The 615 is an example: a PPC with a 486 core (IBM has rights to Intel CPU's second only to Intel themselves). The 620 was another: an Itanium-like (without the VLIW) CPU with tons of pipelines and multiprocessor capabilities that never made it into production. Then there's PREP, CHRP, OS/2 for the PowerPC...
I can't believe I'm responding to such an obvious troll, but what the heck...
Yes, you can do *everything* yourself. You can grow your own food, generate your own electricity, build your own car... But frankly, you can buy those things for *far* less than you can do it yourself.
The same is true in business. Yes, you can do everything yourself. I did do everything myself. I suceeded. However, it was harder, and more expensive, than it needed to be.
The real question is this: is this a hobby or a career? If it's a hobby, go crazy: work out of your bedroom, do it as a DBA/Schedule C, and do it as cheaply as possible. But if it's a career, investing just a little bit of money is going to greatly increase your chances of success. And trust me: $20,000 for six months is a little bit of money. It's the weirdest thing to own a business and watch tens of thousands of dollars come in and out in days. Buy a server for a client, spend $10,000 in a day. Get paid for the server, get a $15,000 check. But that money then goes to pay for the eight PC's you're installing for a client next week!
And those are some of the smaller "big checks". I'm sure a company a little bigger than mine wouldn't even notice a check that was barely 5 figures. It's amazing how fast you get used to such checks. Even when you're a one person shop.
As for the rest of this guy's advice: I must say that he has an, ah, interesting perspective. I'll let you evaluate that on your own...
I totally agree with the parent post. The $500/month I wrote about was not your total expenses. I'm assuming the person knows how they're going to eat for the next 3-6 months. If they don't: STOP NOW.
When I started my company, I burned through $20,000 in the first 6-8 months before I brought in enough money to pay my bills (barely). That was with my family of three (Me, my wife and newborn daughter) living on $2000 or less per month. That was definitely on a shoestring: after taxes, our $640/month rent took literally half of our income. That doesn't leave much...
However, the mistake I made was in not budgeting an extra couple of hundred dollars a month to pay for office space, accountant, etc. Like everyone else, I assumed that saving money with a home office was a smart move. I see now, though, that it was not. I *had* budgeted for food, clothing, shelter... I just wish I had budgeted and planned on a couple of more services that would have made my life a *lot* easier.
Believe me, $2000 a month is bare *minimum*. For me, $2000 was living expenses. Given $2000/month for living expenses, I would expect to burn through about $3000 a month (assuming no income). And assuming no income is a good thing to do. It took me 3 months to land my first real work, and it took a couple of months to get the money. A software development business is going to be even worse: unless your product is ready to ship *today*, you've got to build the product, let alone start selling it...
I started my own e-commerce and computer consulting company (see sig). I started it out of my house. That was a mistake.
I'm all for working from my house. I work from there three days a week. But running a business out of the house is not good. From zoning issues, to mailing issues, to clients that want to show up at the office, to spousal issues, etc. etc. etc.: there are a lot of disadvantages.
I know it's scary starting your own company. I've been there. But if you seriously cannot afford up front even $100-$200/month for a year of rent, or you have so few connections (or marketable talents) that you cannot exchange some sort of service for office space, I strongly encourage you to re-think your decision.
My company takes advantage of free office space from one of our clients. They are our *tiniest* client. We would make no real money from them, but they give us an office for our use, in an attractive building, a nice lobby, a receiptionist, someone to sign for packages, etc. It's a good trade.
I would also say the exact same thing about setting up your business properly (with an S-corp or LLC), and an accountant (at least for taxes and such). It might cost you a couple of hundred dollars to get a lawyer to draw up the corp. paperwork, and it might cost you a couple of hundred a quarter to have an accountant handle your taxes, but it's work it.
Again, not to be harsh, but if you can't afford $500/month for the first year up front ($6000 or so, say) for setup paperwork, rent, phone (do *not* use your home number!) and such, you do not have enough resources to start the company.
I wish you much success! I certainly enjoy having my own company. It was a couple of rough years, but things are much more stable now. I've grown to the point where we have a few employees and long-term relationships and contracts. People talk about the lack of job security when you work for yourself. I disagree. I think that I have more security: I know exactly what the books say, and what my prospects are. I know that right now I have enough cash for several months even if I don't invoice a dime, and I know how much I'm going to invoice. That's a lot more information I've ever had from any other employee. And I can't get escorted off the premesis at 4:30 on Friday and told that my personal belongings will be shipped to me...:)
Believe it or not, there were several companies (including Gateway) that were negotiating with IBM to preload OS/2 in 1993-94.
Why didn't they? Microsoft. Microsoft instituted the policy that OEM's *had* to buy MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 for *every* *CPU* they shipped. With Windows, without an OS, with OS/2, it didn't matter. Thou will buy Microsoft. Don't like it? Don't sell Windows.
Of course, when 95% of your PC's will ship with Windows, what do you do? You drop OS/2. It's as simple as that.
Remember the 1994 Microsoft consent decree? THIS IS WHY IT WAS PUT IN PLACE. It's that practice that led to the antitrust suit. The browser issue was not in and of itself the problem. The problem was that bundling the browser violated the 1994 consent decree. No consent decree, no antitrust suit.
Sigh. How quickly they forget...
Re:A full DirectX Win32 wrapper?
on
Winex 3.0 Released
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I will use your argument for the exact opposite reason. Because OS/2 had such excellent Win16 support, nobody who wrote Win16 apps wrote native OS/2 apps. And those few that did got killed.
I'll give you a perfect example: WordPerfect 6.0. There was a 32-bit native OS/2 version, and there was a 16-bit Win16 version. Guess which one ran better: the Win16 version. It had more developers, testers, resources, effort. The OS/2 version was dropped. Why not? OS/2 ran the Win16 version better than real Windows 3.1!
When Windows moved to Windows 95, IBM quit the Microsoft catchup treadmill. They hoped that OS/2 would have enough market force to compel some native OS/2 apps. They also included a library called Open32. Because Windows NT 3.1 (the beginning of the Win32 API) was supposed to be OS/2 3.0, many of the Win32 API calls were renamed OS/2 calls. So, Open32 basically mapped as many Win32 calls onto their OS/2 equivilents as possible. In fact, Lotus used this extensively in porting the Win32 version of SmartSuite to OS/2. Bu again, developers were targeting Win32, not OS/2.
It's a tough call. If OS/2 hadn't been able to run Win16 apps, it would have been a harder sell in 1992. But because in 1994 OS/2 ran Win16 better than Win16 itself, and ran them nearly as well as true OS/2 apps, there was nearly zero incentive to target OS/2 (maybe 10% of the market, which frankly kills Desktop Linux today). OS/2 never got a critical mass of applications. Of course, Microsoft's anti-competitive actions didn't help...
What makes people think that Linux in 2003 is any different than OS/2 in 1994? The fact that they want it to be? That's not going to cut it. And remember: OS/2 had 10% of desktops in 1994, and a high percentage of servers at the time (30-40% or more: at the time it was OS/2 or Netware). Focusing on Win32 compatibility to increase the user base is not going to cut it.
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I think you'd be pretty happy with them, though I haven't used their software recently. I guess I'll have to give them another look!
I've also had problems with HP color lasers. Open one up: there is toner *everywhere* inside. Very messy, and goes through drums quickly.
My personal favorite has been Lexmark's Optra color lasers. They are squeaky clean inside, and cheaper per-page than an HP. YMMV, of course, but I've had much success with them.
The history of OS/2. OS/2 2.0 was the first 32-bit version.
The Turing test part is not the challenge/response of a human. It's the fact that the SPAMMER's computer is able to pass what is a test for a human: the audio has to be so garbled that even a human can't understand it. In the area of voice recognition, computers are able to pass the Turing test.
Of course, they could do something like give you verbal instructions: What's plus ? Mix in a variety of operators, even different types of questions (what it today's date? What is yesterday's date? What country started World War II?) and you'd have a tough test for a computer to pass...
A company attempted to put a hologram on a bill. However, one of the tests it had to pass was a test that crushed the currency. This broke down the intereference pattern, destroying the hologram. So, they got the idea of chopping up the hologram into tiny bits, mixing it into an ink-type base and applying it to the bill that way.
Voila! Color-shifting ink.
All-in-all, I think they'll reduce the leakage before H2 becomes practical...
Yeah, but it would have been most funny with a goatse link!
The parent, and several children, most of them playing off of my joke, or me playing off of their joke, get modded up as funny.
I get moderated *down* as overrated. Not even troll or flamebait, but overrated.
Somebody's gotta explain that one to me.
I had to re-read that last line *3* times before it realized it said "layers" and not "laWyers"...
Something like, "If one part of this contract is deemed unenforcable, this does not affect the remaining terms of this Agreement."
I believe that without that, an entire contract could be tossed out if only part of it were unenforcable. But seeing as every contract I've ever seen has it, it doesn't so much matter.
I'm posting this to undo my accidental mod. I mean to mod +1 funny but modded -1 Redundant.
I *hate* redundant mods. Sorry for the screwup. This will undo it.
They've even tried migrating to Ethernet. They will switch a division from time to time, but they've found that Ethernet actually costs them more: they have to buy new Ethernet switches compared to the cost of continuing with TR (which for them is near zero, with an inventory of 100Mb cards and CAU's already purchased), and it buys them pretty much nothing. So until there's an actual reason to, they're staying TR...
Before 1993 or so and the advent of Switched Ethernet, Ethernet would melt down under the weight of its own traffic. 40% traffic for Ethernet is an emergency situation. I've seen TR networks hum along with 80-90% utilization and the users barely know.
Token Ring has built-in QoS. It has several levels of error monitors. These are things that are kind of added by switches, but are not a fundamental part of the topology. And if you don't have a *good* switch, you don't even have that.
Of course, in the early 90's Ethernet cards were under $100 and Token Ring cards were $400. *That's* why Ethernet won. Not speed: TR was doing 16MBit when Ethernet could only do 10, and remember, I can acually *get* 16Mbit from TR, instead of 4Mbit with Ethernet. Today, with good switches, I don't miss TR too much. But before switches...
Maybe that's why many, many very large organizations were using TR even into the early '90's. Try running 300 computers on unswiched 10Mbit Ethernet (the best Ethernet had then)...
Yes, I know it's not funny...
I've seen OS/2 for PowerPC, though I was not fortunate to have run it myself. However, it never existed as a product; hence, vaporware.
Interestingly, there are a *ton* of products that IBM has built all the way to the point where the are ready to ship, but never shipped them. There's a good reason. When IBM ships something, they then must support it. Nearly forever. The cost of a product is not so much the cost of building it, but the cost of supporting it. That's one reason why OS/2 PPC never shipped.
Of course, there's another reason: by the time it was ready, it was obvious that there wasn't a hardware platform to run it on, and there wasn't going to be a platform. IBM wasn't interested in running OS/2 PPC on RS/6000 hardware: AIX was already there. They wanted it to run on PREP/CHRP PC's: what IBM saw as the next consumer/standard business PC. But by the time OS/2 PPC was ready, PREP and CHRP were dead.
It's too bad. I would love to be typing this on a PPC running OS/2... Instead it's a Thinkpad running Windows 2000... Sigh.
They signed a deal with Motorola to only buy from Motorola any chips that Motorola builds. IBM has faster G3 and G4 processors than Motorola, but Apple can't buy them. Why? Their deal.
Why doesn't Motorola ramp up the speed of the G4? AltiVec. AltiVec is *critical* for things such as DSP operations. It's AltiVec that makes PPC a powerful option for switch and router designers and other embedded marketplaces. These applications don't need 2GHz CPU's, they need efficient 400MHz CPU's. Motorola focuses on that marketplace. And *that* is why Apple can't get a CPU faster than 1.2GHz.
IBM, though, builds lots of PPC computers: AS/400's and RS/6000's (excuse me: eServer i-series and eServer p-series). They need fast CPU's, and they don't care about the DSP garbage. Though it seems that with the 970 they've included both.
IBM is another of those companies that fabless chipmakers (such as Cyrix, when they were building chips) came to when they needed extra capacity. IBM makes an unbelievable number of chips, from PPC processors to x86 processors (there are still a *lot* of embedded designs that use 80186's, for example) to memory controllers, to you name it.
In fact, AMD doesn't have a lot of capacity for their own stuff. Their biggest problem is on the high end: .13 micron fabs. They have lots of lower-end fab capability, but it's unlikely that Apple needs that kind of capacity...
The early days of PPC were wild. Apple and IBM working together on hardware and software (Taligent and Pink, some of which got rolled into OS/2's System Object Model). The possibility of running OS/2, Windows *and* MacOS all on the same computer all at the same time via Microkernel... Cool stuff.
A lot of things were attempted but never worked. The 615 is an example: a PPC with a 486 core (IBM has rights to Intel CPU's second only to Intel themselves). The 620 was another: an Itanium-like (without the VLIW) CPU with tons of pipelines and multiprocessor capabilities that never made it into production. Then there's PREP, CHRP, OS/2 for the PowerPC...
1994 was a wild time for vaporware...
Yes, you can do *everything* yourself. You can grow your own food, generate your own electricity, build your own car... But frankly, you can buy those things for *far* less than you can do it yourself.
The same is true in business. Yes, you can do everything yourself. I did do everything myself. I suceeded. However, it was harder, and more expensive, than it needed to be.
The real question is this: is this a hobby or a career? If it's a hobby, go crazy: work out of your bedroom, do it as a DBA/Schedule C, and do it as cheaply as possible. But if it's a career, investing just a little bit of money is going to greatly increase your chances of success. And trust me: $20,000 for six months is a little bit of money. It's the weirdest thing to own a business and watch tens of thousands of dollars come in and out in days. Buy a server for a client, spend $10,000 in a day. Get paid for the server, get a $15,000 check. But that money then goes to pay for the eight PC's you're installing for a client next week!
And those are some of the smaller "big checks". I'm sure a company a little bigger than mine wouldn't even notice a check that was barely 5 figures. It's amazing how fast you get used to such checks. Even when you're a one person shop.
As for the rest of this guy's advice: I must say that he has an, ah, interesting perspective. I'll let you evaluate that on your own...
When I started my company, I burned through $20,000 in the first 6-8 months before I brought in enough money to pay my bills (barely). That was with my family of three (Me, my wife and newborn daughter) living on $2000 or less per month. That was definitely on a shoestring: after taxes, our $640/month rent took literally half of our income. That doesn't leave much...
However, the mistake I made was in not budgeting an extra couple of hundred dollars a month to pay for office space, accountant, etc. Like everyone else, I assumed that saving money with a home office was a smart move. I see now, though, that it was not. I *had* budgeted for food, clothing, shelter... I just wish I had budgeted and planned on a couple of more services that would have made my life a *lot* easier.
Believe me, $2000 a month is bare *minimum*. For me, $2000 was living expenses. Given $2000/month for living expenses, I would expect to burn through about $3000 a month (assuming no income). And assuming no income is a good thing to do. It took me 3 months to land my first real work, and it took a couple of months to get the money. A software development business is going to be even worse: unless your product is ready to ship *today*, you've got to build the product, let alone start selling it...
Hope the advice helps...
I started my own e-commerce and computer consulting company (see sig). I started it out of my house. That was a mistake.
I'm all for working from my house. I work from there three days a week. But running a business out of the house is not good. From zoning issues, to mailing issues, to clients that want to show up at the office, to spousal issues, etc. etc. etc.: there are a lot of disadvantages.
I know it's scary starting your own company. I've been there. But if you seriously cannot afford up front even $100-$200/month for a year of rent, or you have so few connections (or marketable talents) that you cannot exchange some sort of service for office space, I strongly encourage you to re-think your decision.
My company takes advantage of free office space from one of our clients. They are our *tiniest* client. We would make no real money from them, but they give us an office for our use, in an attractive building, a nice lobby, a receiptionist, someone to sign for packages, etc. It's a good trade.
I would also say the exact same thing about setting up your business properly (with an S-corp or LLC), and an accountant (at least for taxes and such). It might cost you a couple of hundred dollars to get a lawyer to draw up the corp. paperwork, and it might cost you a couple of hundred a quarter to have an accountant handle your taxes, but it's work it.
Again, not to be harsh, but if you can't afford $500/month for the first year up front ($6000 or so, say) for setup paperwork, rent, phone (do *not* use your home number!) and such, you do not have enough resources to start the company.
I wish you much success! I certainly enjoy having my own company. It was a couple of rough years, but things are much more stable now. I've grown to the point where we have a few employees and long-term relationships and contracts. People talk about the lack of job security when you work for yourself. I disagree. I think that I have more security: I know exactly what the books say, and what my prospects are. I know that right now I have enough cash for several months even if I don't invoice a dime, and I know how much I'm going to invoice. That's a lot more information I've ever had from any other employee. And I can't get escorted off the premesis at 4:30 on Friday and told that my personal belongings will be shipped to me... :)
Why didn't they? Microsoft. Microsoft instituted the policy that OEM's *had* to buy MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 for *every* *CPU* they shipped. With Windows, without an OS, with OS/2, it didn't matter. Thou will buy Microsoft. Don't like it? Don't sell Windows.
Of course, when 95% of your PC's will ship with Windows, what do you do? You drop OS/2. It's as simple as that.
Remember the 1994 Microsoft consent decree? THIS IS WHY IT WAS PUT IN PLACE. It's that practice that led to the antitrust suit. The browser issue was not in and of itself the problem. The problem was that bundling the browser violated the 1994 consent decree. No consent decree, no antitrust suit.
Sigh. How quickly they forget...
I'll give you a perfect example: WordPerfect 6.0. There was a 32-bit native OS/2 version, and there was a 16-bit Win16 version. Guess which one ran better: the Win16 version. It had more developers, testers, resources, effort. The OS/2 version was dropped. Why not? OS/2 ran the Win16 version better than real Windows 3.1!
When Windows moved to Windows 95, IBM quit the Microsoft catchup treadmill. They hoped that OS/2 would have enough market force to compel some native OS/2 apps. They also included a library called Open32. Because Windows NT 3.1 (the beginning of the Win32 API) was supposed to be OS/2 3.0, many of the Win32 API calls were renamed OS/2 calls. So, Open32 basically mapped as many Win32 calls onto their OS/2 equivilents as possible. In fact, Lotus used this extensively in porting the Win32 version of SmartSuite to OS/2. Bu again, developers were targeting Win32, not OS/2.
It's a tough call. If OS/2 hadn't been able to run Win16 apps, it would have been a harder sell in 1992. But because in 1994 OS/2 ran Win16 better than Win16 itself, and ran them nearly as well as true OS/2 apps, there was nearly zero incentive to target OS/2 (maybe 10% of the market, which frankly kills Desktop Linux today). OS/2 never got a critical mass of applications. Of course, Microsoft's anti-competitive actions didn't help...
What makes people think that Linux in 2003 is any different than OS/2 in 1994? The fact that they want it to be? That's not going to cut it. And remember: OS/2 had 10% of desktops in 1994, and a high percentage of servers at the time (30-40% or more: at the time it was OS/2 or Netware). Focusing on Win32 compatibility to increase the user base is not going to cut it.