It's not over, but it's over commercially

Post #229,038 by Andrew Grygus 10/11/05 1:33:27 AM Reply	It's not over, but it's over commercially A guy can still make a few bucks selling OS/2 software, but not enough to afford travel any distance and taking time out. Most OS/2 users pretty much have the software they need already. Most new OS/2 software will be ports from Linux, much of it open source. Commercial developers can't really compete with that. I don't know where NetLab's Everblue project is now but running Linux software in an OS/2 window rather than just full screen would be a good development. I'll continue running OS/2 for quite some time because it serves my needs quite well, but I don't need a lot of new software either. I don't see many people migrating to OS/2 even after the Doomsday Worm hits Windows because it hasn't the mindshare and IBM simply won't back it any more. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #229,172 by LewisR 10/11/05 6:29:22 PM Reply	Re: It's not over, but it's over commercially As a consultant who sells and supports OS/2 (among other OSes), I can say that there is just as much revenue to be made supporting OS/2 as any other OS, as long as your practice consists of more than "break and fix." I'm a NetWare consultant. If I had to make a living fixing broken NetWare installations, vs upgrading and expanding NetWare shops, I'd be hungry. Only M$-only guys can make a living literally running around like chickens without heads plugging leaks and applying security patches... No, we did not have a huge vendor turnout at Warpstock Hershey, but we had more than last year, and perhaps more than we had in San Francisco in 2003; I take that as a good sign. We had a bigger crowd this year than last (and perhaps 2003, as well; I haven't looked at an exact tally as yet). I was in Atlanta in 1999, and that was significantly larger than Austin, SF, or Denver; that doesn't mean that 2002, 2003, or 2004 weren't also excellent events. I don't judge Warpstock by the vendor participation (alone). We had 12 half day classes and 23 presentations (IIRC), and over the entire 4-day period, I did not hear one peep about there being sparse content or that people did not get a good value for the dollar. 2006 will be better than 2005, of this I am convinced. I really believe we turned a corner this year, and as M$ continues to give lip service to becoming "security conscious," eCS gains more and more opportunities to compete. As Linux gains ground against Win32, so also, do we, as odd as that may sound. Many enterprises are migrating from the Windows desktop to the KDE or Gnome environment, mainly to gain security and stability. However, often they face the harsh reality that neither of those are particularly adaptable or truly object oriented, as is the WPS. I am not trying to make a case for the desktop wars. I'm only stating that as long as eCS (OS/2, under it all) offers a compelling alternative, and as long as such an alternative is needed by the global user community, Warpstock will continue to offer itself as an annual resource. Only when there is no need for such alternatives (and I, frankly, cannot see that time coming in the next decade) will there be debate as to the viability of Warpstock and similar events. (BTW, there have been three OS/2 events so far this year, and yet another one coming...remember when there were none?) -- Lewis ------------------------------------------------------------ Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLE Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC Accountants / Network Consultants New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com eComStation Consultants www.ecomstation.com Novell Users International www.novell.com/linux/truth Warpstock 2005 - Hershey, Pennsylvania, October 6-9, 2005 www.warpstock.org ------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,177 by jake123 10/11/05 6:43:03 PM Reply	Hey, Lewis, long time no see Hope all is well with you and yours. Jack --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,179 by LewisR 10/11/05 6:52:33 PM Reply	Re: Hey, Lewis, long time no see Same to you, Jack. ;-) Good to see you on these pages. I just discovered this little Zope site after Mark mentioned some comments about WS Hershey (which was a blast, BTW; unfortunately, as the event chair, I didn't get to see much in the sessions, but I had people at our vendor booth on a regular basis, and I have a hunch that I'm even going to turn some of that discussion into new work (which is the point of it, at least from the vendor table perspective). Be well. Catch you later! -- Lewis ------------------------------------------------------------ Lewis G Rosenthal, CNA, CLE Rosenthal & Rosenthal, LLC Accountants / Network Consultants New York / Northern Virginia www.2rosenthals.com eComStation Consultants www.ecomstation.com Novell Users International www.novell.com/linux/truth Warpstock 2005 - Hershey, Pennsylvania, October 6-9, 2005 www.warpstock.org ------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,190 by broomberg 10/11/05 7:22:29 PM Reply	Sigh Ah, inflamed passions of (can't be youth) hmmmmm. It is an orphan technology. It has been disavowed by the core developers. It is closed source. It is over. It may take a long time to fall down, but it is inevitable. It may outlive me, hanging on, being supported by people such as yourself. If you can make a living on it, great, no argument. But there is finite dwindling number of companies that use it. There may be an occasional new company, as an OS/2 person goes from one to another, but there is no mindshare, no public pushing, no advertising of any realistic amount that could make a difference, no serious possibility of future expansion of usage. As each next generation of hardware comes out every few years, there is less and less of a chance that it will run on it. So the possibility for running on new gear dwindles.
Post #229,196 by jake123 10/11/05 7:32:45 PM Reply	The future imho is implementing the WPS to run under X, or perhaps some other graphical system like X. Done right, it could kick serious ass. It's not the tech itself, it's the ideas behind the tech that make it so good... it would be a shame to see some of those ideas disappear. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,202 by Another Scott 10/11/05 7:45:46 PM Reply	People have been talking about it since 1992. Remember that the Workplace Shell on OS/2 was supposed to be the first piece of IBM's grand vision of having the WPS everywhere (even DOS, though that was dropped as it was too memory intensive, IIRC.). There was a [link\|http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/windows/wpsfw151.zip\|WPS for Win16] that was pretty neat (as a concept, but limited), but the WPS never went beyond OS/2 and Win16. At least not publicly. I have to think that IBM has a WPS for Unix in a drawer somewhere, or had someone write it under contract and that vendor has it in a drawer somewhere. The fact that there hasn't been an Open Source work-alike in all these many years tells me that it's not a simple problem. :-( Is anyone working on it? I don't see anything at [link\|http://www.netlabs.org\|http://www.netlabs.org] Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #229,205 by jake123 10/11/05 7:55:17 PM Reply	Yes, definitely not a simple problem In a way, you could say that it's why I'm going to school. OTOH, there are certain things that exist now that make it way easier than it was say ten years ago, or even five years ago. Still, it's definitely not a simple problem. OTOH, it's certainly far from an intractable one. I think part of the reason people haven't produced it is that most programmers (and esp. nix programmers of the snooty variety) have had no exposure to it. --\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n Jack Troughton jake at consultron.ca \n [link\|http://consultron.ca\|http://consultron.ca] [link\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca\|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] \n Kingston Ontario Canada [link\|news://news.consultron.ca\|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------
Post #229,260 by Meerkat 10/12/05 7:20:54 AM Reply	You could liken it to a vintage car. OS/2. Original VW Beetle. Over? Yes. But does it still have its loyal fans, its people who use it daily, and who attend convetions, get-togethers and swap-meets about it? Absolutely. All I need now is accusations of Beetle zealots stuffing online ballots, and my comparison will be complete :) Two out of three people wonder where the other one is.
Post #229,332 by folkert 10/12/05 3:18:06 PM Reply	There are rumors... That when DARPA and others were first online(1972-3)... there was a DDoS simply because of the programmed voting for the VM Beetle as Car and Boat of the year. Of course this doesn't explain why in 1963 a similar occurance happen... but the mail carriers cheated and used trucks to dump the mail in-line for Car and Driver to tally. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* Freedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0; 0 rows returned.
Post #229,396 by broomberg 10/12/05 9:00:54 PM Reply	Piece of crap car Steering so bad you thought you were driving a home made go-cart with rope twisted around the steering column. Car so light the slightest breeze could push you off the road. Straw in the seats, at bit of dampness and they co stinky moldy. On the other hand, you could fly over bumps and never bottom out.
Post #229,399 by boxley 10/12/05 9:18:50 PM Reply	ecxept for the second sentence you are describing my van "the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep questions, help? [link\|mailto:pappas@catholic.org\|email pappas at catholic.org]

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