USB may have a new life, now that USB 3 is here (and we desperately need a driver for that), but I expect that USB 3 will also run out of steam in a few years. It is just too slow. ESATA is the best alternative, followed by NAS storage (with at least a 1Gb/s interface). Of course, something else may come along to replace all of them, and then we will need support for that.
Too slow? For what? For what reason you need super fast media?
1. Some devices are large floppies, and have no partition table. We should recognize them as partitions anyway so we can use our FAT32 IFS.
This is true, but it is just plain lazy (on the part of the manufacturers) to not have proper partitions on something larger than 2 GB (that probably won't change). It would also be better to be able to use NTFS, rather than FAT32, but nobody seems to want to improve the NTFS driver. FAT32 is also not very good, but it is the only real alternative for sharing data between OS/2 and Windows.
Large floppy has no partition table and is just accepted, LVM or not. No, it won't change, it won't go over 2Gb, that's why it is large floppy. NTFS is from Microsoft and they want big money if you want to use it as a separate driver. It's their way to put you out of business, so why not act if they don't exist? Windows is not worth the trouble, it sucks all the way. They only get it right when they abandon the glue-on system. We have JFS, much better.
Since we really don't have proper access to the driver source
As far as I know this is not true.
What we need, is for IBM to release the source for OS/2 (probably won't happen).
Has nothing to do with the drivers, that's software around the kernel.
Then, we need hardware manufacturers to be more open about what their devices need to make them work, so we can create new drivers (probably won't happen).
You can forget that, they just don't reply to specific questions, even if you could find out by yourself if you would buy all the models.
In USA you could raise an act as it is not free enterprise in this way. In their way they pushing Windows and in a less way Apple. Everything else is omitted. I think there are some agreements between Microsoft and other companies we are not allowed to know of.
Trouble is to proof it.
We also need a few thousand competent programmers, who are willing to donate their time (probably won't happen).
a few thousand?, even at Microsoft's there are far less busy with a project.
Much testing of new software needs to be done, and all it takes is a bit of education about how to do that, and how to make proper problem reports, and many more people can help out. Complaining in the forums is not helpful, although venting some frustration probably doesn't hurt the individual who does it.
The major problem is that I know very few people who can do tasks the same way time after time.
regards,
Joop