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IBM

Petition To Get OS/2 Open Source 503

Posted by Hemos from the not-likely-but dept.
Landreth writes "There is currently an ongoing petition taking place at OS2 World to get IBM to open source either the whole part or parts of OS/2 to the community. I would highly encourage the Linux community to take part of this open source petition as well due to the fact there are lots of interesting code base the they could benefit from. To sign the petition: http://www.os2world.com/petition/" Despite the jokes about it, there was some good stuff in OS/2; however, I'd rank the ability to open it up fairly low, since I suspect there's a fair amount of legal restrictions on elements of the code.
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Petition To Get OS/2 Open Source More

Petition To Get OS/2 Open Source

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  • I'm In (293) - Many More Needed. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Allen Zadr ( 767458 ) * <Allen.Zadr@nOspaM.gmail.com> on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:11PM (#12337395) Journal
    The total number of registrants for this OS2 petition: 293

    Thank you     real name, your registration was successful.

    I've got to say - even if 40% of OS2 is opened up, the benefits to many, many projects could be wide-spread. Further, history shows that IBM is likely to use a GNU compatible license if they open the source at all.

    They obviously need more names. Posting it here though will make a nightmare for those who need to clean up the petition.

    • Hey, now we know how many signatures there are at the beginning of the slashdotting! Now, if someone will dupe the story in 3-4 days, we can see how many signatures got added :-D

      --LWM
    • I just signed it and I'm number 499.

    • Re:I'm In (293) - Many More Needed. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pavon ( 30274 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:27PM (#12337610)
      Further, history shows that IBM is likely to use a GNU compatible license if they open the source at all.

      Sort of. When they release code added to an existing project, it is released under that projects licence. But most of the code that they have released on their own is under the Common Public License (previously IBM Public License). The CPL is a very nice license, simular to the LGPL in what rights it gives to the user, and the FSF has no philosophical objections with it. However it is not compatable with the GPL for technical legal reasons. That means that you cannot compile GPL(or LGPL) code and CPL code together, although you can link CPL code against LGPL.

      I also agree that it would be very difficult to open source OS/2 because of cross licensing. Just one example - OS/2 is posix compliant. I would be very suprised if IBM did not have some license agreement with the holders of the SVR4 when making the posix layer. Also because they were not planning on releasing the code, they may not have kept track of every location of licensed code. This could become a bigger nightmare then the SCO lawsuit if they tried to open it up.

  • The instant the source is released (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mferrier ( 878754 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:13PM (#12337416)
    ... you know IBM is going to have ten more lawsuits on their hands as various software copyright holders magically find bits of "their code" in the OS/2 source.

  • Microsoft owns a lot of the code (Score:5, Funny)

    by SocietyoftheFist ( 316444 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:13PM (#12337420)
    It taint gonna happen.

  • MSFT will say no (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DaHat ( 247651 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:13PM (#12337423)
    Lets not forget that OS/2 was jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft and no doubt Microsoft still has significant rights to large portions of the code base. I find it very unlikely that they would let IBM release the code even if IBM wanted to.

    • Re:MSFT will say no (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
      Exactly, you can run Windows 16bit and (Win32) software on OS/2. I doubt microsoft will allow that code to be GPL'ed.

      I rathed liked OS/2, stable and had the best VGA Font I used. Ya, die hard terminal user. :P

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) *
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:MSFT will say no (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:50PM (#12337892)
        The ability for OS/2 to run Windows 16 and 32bit code was because IBM did a great job at the DOS virtual machine. It really was Windows 3.x running in OS/2. IBM even had Windows 95( aka Chicago ) running on OS/2 until Microsoft found out and then made Win32 apps load a tiny bit of data at and address space outside the reach of OS/2. I think OS/2 processes had 512MB of virtual address space while a Win32 app had 1.5GB or something like that. So OS/2 ended up only able to run Win32S applications and not Win32C or Win32NT apps.

        It was pretty cool running all those different systems on one OS though. At one point, I ran Win16/32s apps with OS/2 apps, XFree86 apps, and JAVA apps. Even wrote X11 apps for HP-UX systems on OS/2 and NFS before recompiling on the HP-UX system in the lab for final testing. It was sweet and the WorkplaceOS was supposed to take that concept to the OS level. Kinda like VM-Ware but with host OS and client OS integration.

        But all this is and was a theat to the "One Microsoft Way" kind of thinking. To Microsoft, competition is BAD. Very bad. That's why their way of competing is to do anything to prevent the competition in the first place. See DOJ vs MSFT court docs for a small set of examples of this.

        LoB
    • Exactly, and more than that, parts added (ported from AIX to be precise) solely by IBM, like JFS or modern TCP/IP stack, were already released for Linux, so I think IBM did whatever it could.

      In fact this question is almost as old os OS/2 itself and the answer is well known, so very strange it reappeared again.

    • Re:MSFT will say no (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:36PM (#12337728)
      With that said, anything from red books to technical documentation would be useful. Even header files. Or the CSet++ / VisualAge classes. Aside from SOM / WPS, OS/2 is like a primitive NT (flame proof clothes on but it's true) - it has limited plug and play, limited registry, limited games support (DIVE), less APIs, it's not a moving target and its API very closely resembles Win16 / Win32.

      Someone could produce something akin to WINE but for OS2/ apps. What use would this be? I have no idea, but I suppose there might be a lot of file servers, EPOS & banking code out there written to OS/2. It might be a big win to someone if that could be moved over to Linux.

  • What are you crazy?! I mean I know OS/2 users are in denial, but geez this is INSANE!

  • OS/2 Ahh the memories (Score:5, Insightful)

    by big-giant-head ( 148077 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:13PM (#12337427)
    I used in the early ninties, for it's day it was very nice. I think a Opensourced OS/2 would be a good alternative to Linux/BSD, for some folks who want a more gui driven system.... It never hurts to have options.
    • Speaking as a crazed liberal, I have to agree. I loved OS/2 Warp. I got it before Windows 95 came out and man was it sweet. It had the nicest looking GUI of the day just one notch below Mac OS. Win 3.1 blew chunks in the desktop department at the time. When Windows 95 came out, it felt like OS/2's retarded backwards hillbilly cousin. The main thing that killed my use of OS/2 was the lack of applications that I wanted (mostly games as I was a 20-something then).

      As far as aGUI based alternative to Lin

      • Hee hhehee (in a Dr Evil sort of Laugh)..

        If we could roll OS/2 and reactOS together that would rock!

        I haven't touched C/C++ in 6 years and I'm ready to volunteer.

        • Re:OS/2 Ahh the memories (Score:5, Informative)

          by maxwell demon ( 590494 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:54PM (#12337929) Journal
          Well, according to their web page, the ReactOS people actually plan an OS/2 subsystem. Therefore if IBM released the part of the OS/2 code which they can, it would probably be a big help.

          BTW, if the OS/2 kernel code is too encumbered, even releasing the WPS alone could be a great thing. While it certainly lacked some features which modern desktops have, it had some other features which AFAIK are still not available on other systems (e.g. what was called "Arbeitsordner" in the German version; essentially a folder which managed its own "sub-session").
      • Well, as far as I'm concerned, the Windows GUI to this very day is a half-witted knock-off of OS/2's WPS. I'm not going to get into a war over whether MacOS's GUI is better than the old WPS, but it's pretty damn sad that Windows XP, when you look at it, has an inferior GUI to one developed a decade ago.
    • If I recall correctly... OS/2 was used by IBM as the foundation for the S390 emulator software they use as the foundation platform on which they run the Z/OS or S/390 enviornment. This runs their current crop of mainframes. The Mainframe Market is small these days comapred to the past, but there are still organizations that use "Big Iron".

  • vms (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What we need, is VMS open sourced. OS/2 might be interesting, but VMS would be useful. There's a difference. VMS has one of the best multitasking systems that's ever seen the light of day - a scheduler that works exceedingly well, and a VM system that blows everything on the market today out of the water.

    • Re:vms (Score:3, Informative)

      by DaHat ( 247651 )
      Would this be a bad time to mention that large portions of Windows NT were designed and implemented by many of the same people who built VMS? In fact, many of the data structures used by both systems are oddly similar, even identical in made cases.

    • Re:vms (Score:3, Informative)

      by LurkerXXX ( 667952 )
      You mean like OpenVMS [openvms.org]? If you really cared, you would know it's already out there.

      • Re:vms (Score:4, Interesting)

        by lostchicken ( 226656 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:48PM (#12337873)
        OpenVMS is not open source. It's simply what DEC called VMS in its later years, to signify an open-system, not an open source base. In other words, it supported open standards such as POSIX and Unix compatability, as well as TCP/IP networking, instead of the proprietary systems it used to support.

        There is a project by the name of FreeVMS, but it's not anywhere close to being done, and it's pretty much stagnant now.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:14PM (#12337440)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Workplace Shell (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mikkeles ( 698461 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:15PM (#12337442)
    Just getting the Workplace Shell and the OOUI would be great; I'm sure a lot of the kernel internals would no longer be an advancement!

    • Re:Workplace Shell (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous IBMer here. Just wanted to let everyone know that you should forget about getting ALL of OS/2 and instead keep on asking for the Workplace Shell.

      Usability wise, OS/2 is a nightmare, but the underlying technology is still unmatched by any OS out there, including the much vaunted OS X.

    • Re:Workplace Shell (Score:5, Insightful)

      by markhb ( 11721 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:24PM (#12337574) Journal
      I agree; SOM (the System Object Model) and the WPS are really the only pieces that would hold any interest. The OS/2 kernel was an advancement over DOS, but IBM never took it further than that (and it was still designed as a single-user PC OS, albeit with hooks for external security apps).

      That having been said, I think that regardless of the legal entanglements, open-sourcing any part of their fat client OS would be in direct opposition to their "eCommerce Platform" strategy (i.e., run everything as thin clients off of Websphere), and so I agree with Hemos' prediction that this is not going to be more than a "wouldn't it be nice" for the foreseeable future.
    • I agree. From what I've heard, the kernel is a structural nightmare, and even at OS/2's peak, there were only a few people within IBM who knew it well enough to make serious changes.

      The WPS, SOM, DSOM, etc, are the interesting parts of the OS, and that's the part that I (as a former OS/2 developer) would like to see.

      Chip H.

  • MS-Win Integration Code Off-Limits? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EricTheGreen ( 223110 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:16PM (#12337468) Homepage
    IIRC, OS/2 (at least Warp) shipped with a complete install of MS-Win to provide dual-OS support. The OS/2 code contained lots of integration points--if these integration points relied on Win code provided as part of the infamous "divorce decree", that would presumably be off-limits without MS's blessing. If so, would there be enough "untainted" OS/2 code left to be useful as open source?

    I didn't use later versions of OS/2, so I don't know if this chimera-like architecture was changed further on...
    • There was a version of OS/2 Warp which didn't include Windows -- it took advantage of the Windows 3.1 installation you already had on your computer. I think it was 'OS/2 for Windows' or 'Warp for Windows'. It came in a red box, to distinguish it from the 'full' version that came in a blue box. It was also less expensive.

      If I remember, not long after Warp For Windows came out, Microsoft came out with Windows 3.11 which fixed a few bugs in 3.1. Oddly enough, it didn't work with OS/2 for Windows. I'm sur
      • There were some claims at the time that IBM's WinOS2 was in fact faster than Windows 3.1, based upon running Warp with WinOS2 vs. Warp with Windows 3.1.

        Another thing I miss was OS/2's awesome DOS VDM support. Most of my DOS games played perfectly under OS/2, and through the dummy DOS sound driver could even access the soundcard. I was mightily disappointed when I started playing around with NT 4.0 that it couldn't, and neither could Win2k. I have no idea whether WinXP can, though there is a third party

  • I always liked OS/2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MythoBeast ( 54294 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:17PM (#12337482) Homepage Journal
    I honestly think that OS/2 would have made a much greater impact if it hadn't had such pathetic PR support. The OS itself was a surprsingly strong and reliable system, but their ad campaigns were mind-bogglingly pathetic.

    I'm not sure what the Linux community could gain by it being open source, except maybe some more efficient/reliable algorythms. As such, it would be enough for the IBM written chunks to be open sourced - they don't need a complete, functional code base.

  • Windows DLL Code (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ToPAz3in6 ( 583698 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:18PM (#12337489) Homepage Journal
    OS/2 has a Windows (3.1) compatability layer which uses a lot of DLL code given to them under agreement back in the early 90's. There's your roadblock. (or your target...)

    • Re:Windows DLL Code (Score:5, Funny)

      by njfuzzy ( 734116 ) <[moc.x-nai] [ta] [nai]> on Monday April 25, 2005 @01:06PM (#12338091) Homepage
      > There's your roadblock. (or your target...)

      I am guessing you have a Massachusetts drivers license?

    • Re:Windows DLL Code (Score:3, Informative)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      No roadblock here.

      The ability to run Windows in OS/2 was called DOS. And it was a better DOS than Microsofts DOS. Photoshop ran faster in WinOS2 then it did on native DOS/Windows. Anyways, Windows run in this virtual DOS and IBM even sold a version of OS/2( codename Ferengi ) which let you install your Microsoft version of Windows 3.1 into the OS/2 DOS virtual machine. They did this because IBM had to pay Microsoft a large amount for every version of OS/2 sold with the WinOS2 system pre-installed.

      The pre-

  • Not only Linux (Score:2, Interesting)

    by debilo ( 612116 )
    From the summary:
    I would highly encourage the Linux community to take part of this open source petition as well due to the fact there are lots of interesting code base the they could benefit from.

    Please remember Linux isn't the only player in the F/OSS world, there are several huge communities, too (although rumor has it they are dying, or something), and the entire open source community might benefit from this. :-)

  • Not going to happen for a long, LONG time... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zab UvWxy ( 694326 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:20PM (#12337517) Journal
    Why, you may ask?

    There are still a number of financial institutions around the world that run on various versions of OS/2, both at the server and workstation level.

    Also, as of about 5 years ago, CLI OS/2 powered approximately 85% of North America's Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), with a significant share worldwide as well.

    I'm sure most of the companies still behind OS/2 are screaming at IBM not to release so much as a comment from the code.
    • ATMs are being replaced rapidly with newer models running Windows code. A lot of the color-screen units being installed now run Windows. I doubt that the market share is quite that high.

      Besides, your ATM network is protected by strong ACLs and firewalls, right? Right?

      • Re:Not going to happen for a long, LONG time... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sremick ( 91371 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:57PM (#12337966)
        ATMs are being replaced rapidly with newer models running Windows code. A lot of the color-screen units being installed now run Windows

        Yep, those would be all the ones with the BSODs.

        And I'm not just being a random MS-basher here. The number of ATMs, flight-info displays, and price-check terminals with BSODs these days is staggering. For all you MS-apologists out there: when was the last time you saw an ATM with an error that wasn't an Window error?

        • 2 years ago, I tried to buy some subway tickets from a RATP ATM in Paris. I keyed my credit card code in, and *all* ATMs in sight went down as soon as I hitted the validation key.

          In fact, someone forgot to lock an inside key after collecting the previous day money (those machines accept both cards and coins for payment).

          The crash was in fact a security ! But seeing about 15 screens goes blank at once is a wonderful sight, indeed (those machines have since been replaced by new, windows powered ones, which

        • Re:Not going to happen for a long, LONG time... (Score:5, Funny)

          by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Monday April 25, 2005 @01:39PM (#12338513)
          For all you MS-apologists out there: when was the last time you saw an ATM with an error that wasn't an Window error?

          Sometimes I have seen an error message saying something like "This ATM has insufficient funds for your transaction." I've always been suspicious of those and thought that they might have been covering up something, but was never sure.
    • I'm sure most of the companies still behind OS/2 are screaming at IBM not to release so much as a comment from the code.

      Why?

  • It's a shame (Score:5, Informative)

    by brennanw ( 5761 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:21PM (#12337529) Homepage Journal
    That even *some* of the code -- specifically the workplace shell -- can't be released as open source. The workplace shell was one of the most elegant and powerful user interfaces I've ever worked with. It wasn't always the most *attractive* interface -- not by default, at any rate -- but it was the only one I've ever used that ever "felt right" to me. I miss that. The phrase "drag and drop" simply didn't do it justice.

    Anyway, I signed, but I'm afraid that 1) there's too much proprietary licensed code for the entire thing to be released, and 2) IBM has neither the patience nor the interest in doing the work necessary to separate what can be released from what can't be released. Which is a pity.

  • Cash machines (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AltoClef ( 9948 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:21PM (#12337533)
    Given that OS/2 is in a good many cash machines/ATMs, I wouldn't be surprised if there are contractural problems with opening the code up. Security through obscurity and all that.

  • Not this again! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:23PM (#12337566)
    What a joke. Some people have been trying to get OS/2 open-sourced for years. Of course, none of these people is a large IBM customer. Instead, they've always just been a bunch of disgruntled end-users. Looking at this petition, I see that nothing has changed. This petition is no different than any of the dozens before it over the past 10 years.

    There is no way this is going to happen. IBM would have nothing to gain, because they'd have to hire a whole of people to go through the code, figure out what's not protected by any IP (and OS/2 has a 20-year history, so that's a lot of possibile IP), and then release it in such a way as to make sure no one notices, since the last thing IBM wants these days is to bring attention to OS/2.

    • Dare to dream! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by brennanw ( 5761 )
      Sure, it's probably not going to happen, for all the reasons you list. But there's technology in OS/2 that has yet to be duplicated in other operating systems. And like most IBM inventions, it's going to fade into history, forgotten and unused. I'd really like to see what free software developers could do if the workplace shell landed in their lap.

      • Re:Dare to dream! (Score:5, Informative)

        by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:56PM (#12337960)
        I used to work at IBM on OS/2, and I've written a bunch of code for it. I can tell you that the ONLY code of value that isn't implemented somewhere else is the WorkPlace Shell (WPS). Technically, the WPS could probably be released as open-source. However, that wouldn't help a whole lot, for three reasons:

        • The WPS API is well documented and stable. It also isn't that big, since it's just a core API. The real value is in the plug-ins, and there are already plenty of open-source third-party plug-ins for the WPS. It would not be that difficult for someone to recreate the core WPS from scratch, just from looking at the API.
        • IBM's code is heavily tied to the Presentation Manager (PM), which is the OS/2 equivalent of the X Window API. You'd spend as much effort trying to rip out the PM dependencies as you would just rewriting the damn thing from scratch.
        • As powerful as the core WPS is, the current implementation is pretty weak compared to what KDE and GNOME do today. Even after porting the core WPS to Linux (or whatever), the developers would then have a lot of catching-up to do to make it more desireable than KDE or GNOME.
  • This has come up over and over again and IIRC, it's always come back with IBM saying that they can't open source OS/2 because there's too much licensed code in it, and the license holders will not allow releasing the code. Of course, I've also heard that Microsoft is one of the major holdouts.

    Wouldn't it be nice to have the WorkplaceShell on GNU/Linux someday? Or even get something like OpenDoc going again. Being stuck with rectangular windows just seems so 1980's. The browser and *nix has shown that small

  • Write a letter or make a call ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sonic McTails ( 700139 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:24PM (#12337580)
    Writing a letter or calling IBM would be worth like 1,000 to 10,000 signatures because it tells people that you really want this, and you aren't just filling out the form many hundreds of times. If you really want to see it happen call IBM: 1-800-IBM-4YOU

  • OS/2 Is Old (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Ritalin16 ( 867772 ) *
    Personally, I don't think IBM or Microsoft cares what happends to the code, its outdated. I think they wouldn't mind it becomming open source.
    • It may be old, but I'll wager that there is significant amounts of common code between OS/2 and WinNT and its descendants. I'm fairly certain that MS would not want OS/2 open sourced, and while it might be cool, I can't say as I would blame them.

      What would be nice would be to have WPS ported over to *nix and X. Clean it up, build in multiple message queues (I'm sure this isn't a trivial alteration), and you would have a GUI that could take on Mac and Windows.

  • It'll never happen (Score:5, Informative)

    by LouCifer ( 771618 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:32PM (#12337675)
    And here's why [ecomstation.com].

    IBM sold OS/2 off and it became eComStation ("jointly developed" - whatever). I highly doubt big blue has exclusive rights to the code anymore.

    Go ahead and sign the petition, we all know how much weight internet petitions [petitionspot.com] carry.

    I, for one, would love to see both of these pan out. Unfortunately they probably won't.

  • They sold it off to another company some time ago who currently supports it, and develops new versions.. ( estation, or somethign like that )

    Unless something has changed in the last year or so..
  • Microsoft and IBM jointly developed OS/2 but IBM has gradually acquired the rights to the code they didn't own when the M$/IBM split happened. There is a lot of really good stuff in OS/2, though, that was developed solely by IBM after the big split such as the 'workplace shell' (WPS) desktop, the logical volume manager, and the JFS file system. The WPS desktop is arguably still several years ahead of the windows start-bar/explorer window stuff and could be updated relatively easily, if there was access to

  • This is a little late... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suitepotato ( 863945 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:33PM (#12337686)
    If they had hammered a deal to do this with MS back at the time of Warp 4, back when Stardock was still supporting OS/2, it might have gone somewhere and given us essentially three competing systems: Win, Linux, OS/2. Instead, IBM could not find their rear ends with a hunting dog and a copy of Gray's Anatomy, kept with the single worst GUI design this side of the Amiga, and decided obfuscation and counterintuitiveness was superior to ease of use and common sense.

    That said, it would be nice to see, but way late. We should be at Warp 7 by now. I doubt the OS/2 fanatics will be able to sufficiently play catch-up even if Redmond is open to open sourcing the thing given how many went to Windows or Linux or both. They ain't getting younger and doing an about face in your coding mindset like that might cause a bump in the number of programmers seeking professional psychiatric help.
  • The actual code used in OS/2 is probably very tied to being part of an OS/2 system, not Linux or your open source os of choice. Porting an OS isn't like porting an app and translating some library calls..

    Except maybe for some of the very high level code (basically applications), you aren't just going to port some feature of OS/2 to *nix even if you have the code.

    What would be nice would be a release of patents/copyrights covering concepts and technologies used in OS/2, such as the System Object Model c

  • It would be nice if we had those instead of the mess that is KDE/Gnome. I really really miss WPS. Under the covers, I think linux is a better solution for the core though.
  • This is an excellent opportunity for IBM to put 'it's money where it's mouth is'.

    They're 100% behind Linux; they get the profits from the installation and support while letting everyone else do all the development work. .. for free...

    Now here they have a product that can't be sold, has been written off and its cost absorbed into the books. Let them donate it to the open source development community and allow its strongest characteristics be integrated into the main open source product.

    However g
  • If anyone know how to contact the Innoval guys or to obtain the source of Post Road Mailer, I'd be appreciative.

    Even if Innoval didn't want to open the source of Post Road Mailer, like they did for J-Street Mailer, I'd like to fix some of the bugs in it.

  • We've all been complaining for years on the lack of Microchannel bus support... here's our chance to get some code!!!
  • I'd say forget the underlying OS and put Workplace Shell on top of Linux. Not that the underlying OS is bad, it's actually quite good. It's just that, Linux and Windows have both moved on. You would need a whole new driver base, everything, and that's a tall order. If we had the workplace shell desktop, you would get a really powerful desktop - folders that act the way they are supposed to act, etc.

    I wouldn't mind having the EPM editor either. It had a really cool undo feature. Come to think of it,

  • OS (Score:3, Funny)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @12:55PM (#12337941)
    A petition to make the OS OS2 OSS?

  • Perhaps some of OS/2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by AaronW ( 33736 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @01:03PM (#12338044) Homepage
    Having developed device drivers for OS/2, I doubt there'd be that much interest in the OS/2 kernel or device drivers. Even in Warp, and OS/2 4.0, most of the device drivers were 16 bit since the device driver API was only 16 bit (except graphics drivers). I think maybe the only interesting parts would be the Workplace shell and SOM, though I wonder about the stability in today's complex environment, having remembered having issues of stability with the WPS when I loaded up all the software I ran.

    There's also still a lot of Microsoft bits and pieces of code in there.

    -Aaron

  • Lotus 1-2-3 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Monday April 25, 2005 @02:07PM (#12338817) Homepage
    Personally, I'd rather see Lotus 1-2-3 source released. Especially PC v3.3 or Unix v1.0 (curses?). This is still very good code and _far_ more reliable than MS-Excel. We still have & use character-based systems.

  • Linux Community? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ReadParse ( 38517 ) <john@IIIfunnycow.com minus threevowels> on Monday April 25, 2005 @02:19PM (#12338948) Homepage
    I would highly encourage the Linux community to take part of this open source petition

    Then what are you doing here? Everybody knows Slashdot is a Mac site now :)

    RP

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