There is a big push, by even IBMers

Post #214,955

7/15/05 9:45:08 AM

and eCSers to Open up as much of OS/2 as possible. Regarding the whole shebang. I seem to recall IBM using the excuse that some Patents and IP are in there that are from 3rd Parties.

Scuttlebutt has it that IBM has owned some (maybe most, if not all) of those 3rd parties for a few years now. Maybe, just maybe, it might actually become Open and Still be supportable and extendable... and mergable into other OS Kernels.

One can HOPE, can't he?

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Post #214,962

by Another Scott

7/15/05 10:08:29 AM

Yeah, but I'd be *very* surprised if this came to pass.

IBM wants Linux to succeed. They probably don't want to dedicate the resources necessary to be sure that OS/2 is absolutely clean before releasing what they can. (AFAIK, Micrografx still has rights to a lot of Presentation Manager, e.g.) Plus, the people who really know OS/2 left long ago. :-( So, doing anything to distract from their Linux push would probably be regarded as money down the drain and counterproductive.

But it would be very nice if they would release things like the design documents for the Workplace Shell so that it would be easier to port to Linux by those who have the interest and the skill...

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #214,976

by imric

7/15/05 11:17:15 AM

'just' the WPS would be enough for me...

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Post #214,989

by folkert

7/15/05 11:47:47 AM

I'd be more concerned with...

The underlying things in OS/2. The mere fact you could have a hammered OS/2 server and STILL have respectable response from the GUI is an amazing feat. The task switching and swapping, scheduler and those kinds of things.

I'd like to see Linux benefit from the technology/IP/Ideaology that made OS/2 so useful in ATMs, Kiosks, Just about anything important, as it turns out, for quite a while ran as an OS2 application.

Other things like Presentation Manager would be nice to have available and usable in Linux... but I think those days are past, as in freeing Presentation manager. But WPS, still may come around some day.

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Post #217,518

by rcsteiner

8/4/05 3:24:42 PM

Re: I'd be more concerned with...

OS/2 seems to be quite good at dynamically shifting process/thread priority on the fly so UI code isn't adversely impacted.

It isn't as obvious on newer hardware, but on ancient machines like the ones I still tend to run it's sometimes apparent that some other OSes (Win2k, Linux) are not quite as nimble at shuffling their feet under load.

Scott G is still making OS/2 kernel patches available -- it'd be interesting to see if his activity continues past the drop-dead date.

-Rich Steiner
OS/2, Linux, Windows, and OS2200 user in Mableton, GA
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

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