Author Topic: Is eComStation DEAD?  (Read 95625 times)

Andi B.

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #15 on: February 04, 2014, 01:38:00 pm »
Sigurd, I think there is a few key misunderstandings on your side. At least I've a different view than you ....

eCS is not eCS.ru. You have problems with Eugene and the things he contribute or use. We've read that more than once. You don't have to repeat yourself ever and ever.

eCS is not driven by a huge company. In fact as far as I can see it is more or less an effort driven by hobbyists. People from the community all over the world like you and me and a lot of others. But even Roderick and Joachim invest much more than what they get paid for I think.

Mensys organizes and pays (partially) for a lot of eCS development (ACPI, Java, Flash, OS2AHCI, MultiMac...) and is the central place where some strategic decisions were made and still is the only place where such decisions can be made. Mensys is the only place where you can buy new licenses so it's the only place where money is collected and payed for future development (if any).

Mensys bought some products and development resources in Russia TTBOMK via Eugene (Panorama?). Like it or not.

Mensys can use and make profit from user findings posted in different channels as every other Internet user can do too.

Why do you expect that Roderick knows every aspect of eCS (working and installing beside other systems) better than the rest of the world? Why do you insist on "I've found out that this or that works or works not as expected by others" and blame they others not knowing what you learned by trial and error?

Who do you think is the 'someone' who has tried to download some piece of software from some others site? And why do you promote such rumors? Do you have any benefit bashing Mensys? Guess you do not have any evidence for what you are suggesting here, do you?

I absolutely can not understand why you think "Mensys ruins eCS" while in fact they are the ones who enable users like you and me to use OS/2 this days. Without Mensys no one ever had developed ACPI support or Multimac or Panorama or .... People like me who can't afford or were not willing to invest thousands of Euros in buying Warp Server more than 10 years ago do not have any legal possibility to use this platform since many years without Mensys. And even if I had a WSeB license I could not buy another one for my server without Mensys since more than 10 years.

Do you really think Steven or David will do any development for the few remaining companies still running some OS/2 machine when not directed by Mensys? eCS - OS/2 user base is small compared to *nix or *doze but it would be non-existent if not Mensys enables us hobbyist to use OS/2 licenses and updates (legally).

PS: if you write "developers" you have to respect others read "developers". Smiley's do not help arguing against things you meant but not wrote.

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #16 on: February 04, 2014, 02:27:01 pm »
Sigurd, I think there is a few key misunderstandings on your side. At least I've a different view than you ....



->That is OK - never had a problem with different views. What else should lead to a discussion?



eCS is not eCS.ru. You have problems with Eugene and the things he contribute or use. We've read that more than once. You don't have to repeat yourself ever and ever.


-> that has been named as examples for missmanagement of those deciding what have been done with eCS. If eCS would be eCS.ru, well....


eCS is not driven by a huge company. In fact as far as I can see it is more or less an effort driven by hobbyists. People from the community all over the world like you and me and a lot of others. But even Roderick and Joachim invest much more than what they get paid for I think.

Mensys organizes and pays (partially) for a lot of eCS development (ACPI, Java, Flash, OS2AHCI, MultiMac...) and is the central place where some strategic decisions were made and still is the only place where such decisions can be made. Mensys is the only place where you can buy new licenses so it's the only place where money is collected and payed for future development (if any).


-> As far as I know Mensys is not the owner of eCS anymore. It is Xeu.com. Being the only place does not lead to "being out of critics" or doing everything right. Do you have further information about this "take over" that happend sometime in the past?



Mensys bought some products and development resources in Russia TTBOMK via Eugene (Panorama?). Like it or not.



-> If I do not like I might have the right to write about it.



Mensys can use and make profit from user findings posted in different channels as every other Internet user can do too.


-> Why not? But this is not a one direction way.



Why do you expect that Roderick knows every aspect of eCS (working and installing beside other systems) better than the rest of the world? Why do you insist on "I've found out that this or that works or works not as expected by others" and blame they others not knowing what you learned by trial and error?


-> Ha - you may misunderstand what I am trying to say - due to my limited english. It was not "trial and error", the problems with missing things occured right at the first installation trials. What do you think - why did I try to spread almost all my findings if not supporting other users?



Who do you think is the 'someone' who has tried to download some piece of software from some others site? And why do you promote such rumors? Do you have any benefit bashing Mensys? Guess you do not have any evidence for what you are suggesting here, do you?


-> Yes, it might be suprising, but I do have evidence for the things I am writing. This is one reason why I am repeating some things. Not to name "someone" is just because I want to protect "someone". I do not have benefit trashing Mensys. Why should I have promoted eCs in videos? Why do I organize User meetings? Why can you read things like "Installation eCS on modern Laptop"? Is the world only black or white? Why should being critic not be something common? -> Wrong guess.



I absolutely can not understand why you think "Mensys ruins eCS" while in fact they are the ones who enable users like you and me to use OS/2 this days. Without Mensys no one ever had developed ACPI support or Multimac or Panorama or .... People like me who can't afford or were not willing to invest thousands of Euros in buying Warp Server more than 10 years ago do not have any legal possibility to use this platform since many years without Mensys. And even if I had a WSeB license I could not buy another one for my server without Mensys since more than 10 years.



-> Yes, but again, being the only does not include of making everything right. What could or might have been is not important (imagine Stardock would have gained the license and so on). In my opinion those last ten years and at least 5 of them (2006-2010) have been wasted due to Project missmanagement. As far as I remember I am not alone with my opinion, but most of the "others" just moved away.



Do you really think Steven or David will do any development for the few remaining companies still running some OS/2 machine when not directed by Mensys? eCS - OS/2 user base is small compared to *nix or *doze but it would be non-existent if not Mensys enables us hobbyist to use OS/2 licenses and updates (legally).


-> see above


PS: if you write "developers" you have to respect others read "developers". Smiley's do not help arguing against things you meant but not wrote.


-> I could have simply edited my posting before and replaced "developers", but I decided to state it that way. The Smileys are ususally for stressing the "retorical" caracter. My first draft for the post included bold, red and blue caracters, but I decided to return to "usual" format just to avoid to stress things to much.



« Last Edit: February 04, 2014, 02:30:38 pm by Sigurd Fastenrath »

Wim Brul

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2014, 04:38:19 pm »
Hi Sigurd,

You might consider sending a  polite inquiry to Georgina Beels, the Sales and Marketing Manager of XEU.com B.V.

http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/georgina-beels/b/622/642

See attachment for her e-mail address.

She understands German well.

Regards, Wim.

« Last Edit: February 04, 2014, 04:49:56 pm by Wim Brul »

mickhead

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #18 on: February 04, 2014, 10:06:31 pm »
I admit to not understanding the question this thread poses. It seems odd, in my opinion.

The heydays of OS/2 occurred when I was in middle school. I wanted to use OS/2 then but it wouldn't run on the hardware I had available. Today, Mensys offers eComStation, making effort to update OS/2. Will eCS perfectly work on the most up-to-date hardware? Obviously not, but it's getting better all the time. I'm willing to pay a reasonable price to support them, and I support the developers when I'm able. I'm not a developer, and I appreciate and like the work they do.

The point of this reply is: why spend time negating what Mensys/xeu.com/developers are doing? Why not just enjoy the operating system? If the company or people is not meeting expectations, goodness knows there are tons of other choiceswww.distrowatch.com.


eirik

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #19 on: February 04, 2014, 10:54:16 pm »
Mick has a very good point.  At the same time it is easy to understand Sigurd's skepticism towards renewing his software subscription - I guess most people dislike paying for something and getting less.  For certain things at work I need to use my dual boot and start up Win7.  Then I realize why I continue to pay my software subscription:
  • The Win7 boot process takes forever compared to eCS.
  • Once booted, Win7 "thinks" for me.  The only problem is that this "thinking" differs from what my brain does.
  • When I am done, and I am about to close Win7 I forget to pay attention and hit shutdown without bypassing updates (to when I have time).  The clock thicks as I am at update 2 of 7, and I have an appointment somewhere else in just a few minutes.
Yes, it is also frustrating to be an eCS user.  Several things (without going into boring details) do not work properly, but I know what those are, and I have found ways of circumventing those problems.  Not as good as having them solved, but ...

As Mick, I therefore send thank you thoughts to developers and others who has put in numerous hours, many without pay, so that I can still use my preferred operating system on modern hardware.

Fr4nk

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #20 on: February 06, 2014, 10:07:34 am »
Hi Andi,


IMHO the OS/2 - eCS community is special compared to others in the way what they expect from there system/apps. An average Linux guy usually tries things out, plays with software, read numerous hours in the net about problems he encounters and sometimes even start to improve the sources. An average OS/2 - eCS guy expects perfect software focused on the task he needs to be done.

There is also a core difference in the platforms. While Linux is a free platform and the open source philosophy is one if the important features and the base of all, eCs is a commercial platform! And paying some hundred bucks for a OS results in higher expectations. So easy. An eCs customer thinks his money is used to develop things and he doesn't do it self. On Linux you know you pay nothing so you can ask for or you do it yourself. Linux doesn't owe you anything but when I buy eCs than it owes what is promised. Promises - that is another story....

And eCs has a Os2 history and people don't like it when new versions are not as good working as older ones.

The funny thing is that lot of things working better on the free platform than the closed source commercial platform and at the end Martin is right with his Open Source points.

One problem of eCs is also that Mensys is drawing a picture of this OS in our mind. A picture of a commercial OS compared with Win or OSX - working great and everywhere. The power client for inet generation. They don't talk about what is going on. There is no dialog between users and project leaders, there are no polls to get a clue about what users really want. There is more a feeling that end users better be quiet because there are bigger fishes to catch. There is also deny of technical facts (e.g. Sigurd did things Mensys declared as impossible before and even after he did it).

There is no transparency about the development and progress - what the heck are blogs for.

There is no call for help and there is no statement about to less time or a description of problems to keep the picture of a very good working and selling 'better than the years before' operating system somewhere in our mind but the result is in the contrary.

And actually a lot of things are more like on free platforms. E.g. we have a lot of volunteers working for eCs. So eCs is some kind of mix between open source and commercial platform. This get even more disappointing when users see that they buy a product and it includes wide range of free software. You can do this a company but then you need transparency about the things you develop yourself and clarify what users exactly pay for and expose advantages.



« Last Edit: February 06, 2014, 10:12:15 am by Fr4nk »

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #21 on: February 06, 2014, 11:02:52 am »
Hi Sigurd,

You might consider sending a  polite inquiry to Georgina Beels, the Sales and Marketing Manager of XEU.com B.V.

http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/georgina-beels/b/622/642

See attachment for her e-mail address.

She understands German well.

Regards, Wim.

Hi Wim,

thanks for the information. I wrote an email yesterday morning - no reply so far. I will report if there is any.

Sigurd

Andi B.

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #22 on: February 06, 2014, 12:44:08 pm »
@ Fr4nk - there are a lot of valid points in your post which I agreed.

Only want to add another view which I think is valid too - it's completely irrelevant to the working of your product eCS2.1 you paid for if Mensys is now (part of?) XEU. Your eCS work (or not) as before. You did not buy any future feature. Nor I'm aware of any promise made by Mensys (except the more than moderate advertising compared to other companies). Of course a lot of us invested in SS and got in return better ACPI, OS2AHCI, Mulitmac... versions. But is was never promised that board xyz will work within next 12 months or so. I still do not understand what's all this moaning about is good for.

A similar thing which comes to mind - no Porsche driver could anything do against the took over by VW. Useless for any Porsche driver whining about. The Porsche driver does not know the details about the deal in the background and why should he care about? I does not help him paying the service costs nor removing speed limits.

Repeating the myth of project management failures in the past does not write any single line of code nor fix any bug in current available applications. Btw. nearly all people who repeated that myth in the past again and again did not contribute anything useful since years. So again, what's the benefit of this endless discussion? History of the last years learned no one ever will stand up and try to make it better.

You mentioned  -
Quote
that Mensys is drawing a picture of this OS in our mind
This maybe true for some of us. But it was never true for me. Maybe I'm to old or to experienced that I never though that a small company can compete with Linux or MS. Or maybe some of us are simply to blind to see the obvious.

I think I better stop now as I'm not in the position (and do not want to be) to talk for Mensys. Nor do I earn any money for my contribution to eCS. And it's probably better for me going back coding than talking. Only hope others who have problems with a company or an individual solve it directly not in users groups. As the ones involved obviously are not willing to discuss it here.


Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #23 on: February 06, 2014, 01:16:17 pm »
Repeating the myth of project management failures in the past

That is exactly the reason why I am repeating the Facts that make it obvious that it is not a myth but sadly the thruth based on facts.


I still do not understand what's all this moaning about is good for.

For me the reason is: I would like to know what is going on before investing more money. I would just like to have the facts to be able to make a decision if it might be usefull to support Mensys/xeu further on or better to support independent developers direclty. And/or switch to another second OS or try to help Martins Opensource Ideas.


Only hope others who have problems with a company or an individual solve it directly not in users groups. As the ones involved obviously are not willing to discuss it here.

Would be glad if this could work, but I tried several times before to talk direct to the company - even made phone call - and reported the result in this forum as well. The information given to me was close to zero.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2014, 01:25:32 pm by Sigurd Fastenrath »

ivan

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #24 on: February 06, 2014, 01:50:43 pm »
I agree with Sigurd, the lack of information is not doing the platform any good.

On Tuesday I told a client not to even think about getting eCS because of the uncertainty and gave them pointers as to where they should look foe OS/2 licences instead.  We are only a very small organisation but word does get passed around the industry and when the main supplier does not say what is going on people become very concerned about doing business with them.

The new branch of Mensys appears to be aimed at the banking sector and if they play the same game there they will be told that they are not wanted in no uncertain terms.   

Roderick Klein

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD? (Reply from XEU)
« Reply #25 on: February 07, 2014, 11:29:28 am »
Hello everybody,

I understand its a long ride for eCS 2.2. We however released eCS 2.2 beta 2 at the end of 2013 that fixed some of the bugs.
We are currently working on fixing the bugs left that are needed to fixed for supportable product.

Roderick Klein
XEU

Sigurd Fastenrath

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD? (Reply from XEU)
« Reply #26 on: February 07, 2014, 12:56:57 pm »
Hello everybody,

I understand its a long ride for eCS 2.2. We however released eCS 2.2 beta 2 at the end of 2013 that fixed some of the bugs.
We are currently working on fixing the bugs left that are needed to fixed for supportable product.

Roderick Klein
XEU

With this detailed and full answer this thread is closed for me.

Fr4nk

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #27 on: February 08, 2014, 10:39:49 am »
Roderick, for sake isn't it possible to give some more and appropriate informations?

On your side you want to sell support contracts. On the other side ppl are concerned. And as you may noticed over the last 10 years ppl aka your customers are really annoyed by your information policity and non transparency. Isn't it time to change some day? Pulling the "we are working on bugs" joker isn't even a decent answer. There is no word about change to XEU and what it means for the future.  How about get in dialog with your users aka your customers. What are youre priorities, what are the problems, what you working on, and last but not least - where do you need help?

wesco

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #28 on: February 09, 2014, 08:02:40 am »
at corporate we have relied on OS/2 for multimedia with empoarer tv an important part of our work. it has been annouced that the project has ended.

our equipment needs updating and our attempt to migrate to ECS 2.2 is EPIC FAIL on new equipment. we have wasted 5 thousand dollars in unbillable hours dealing with the problems. beyond doing really basic office work, OS/2 is useless and expensive compared to LINUX which also we can not really use for our video processing. i and the rest of the engineering types tend to not think highly of the bean counters; but, they scored majorly when they got 24 windows 8 incenses for 30 each (we have XP running in virtual pc thus qualifying for the upgrade deal).

we are dumping all our ECS 2.1 machines and replacing them with 6 in house built windows 8 machines. the HD7970 with 4K video is AWESOME. the rest we will replace with the new power macs when the budget allows buying the external multimedia interfaces.

mensys is doing a great job with ECS. if you have an automation system or point of sale, or some other vertical app. then ECS is totally viable and one should continue using ECS til the expense makes no sense.

however, as siguard is wondering, i would not put money into the subscriptions. the years of no real improvements have made the subscription expense exceed what we would have spent on windows (sorry, accounting proved it).

i am glad for those that can carry on with OS/2 they are in good hands. OS/2 is good for hobbyists. otherwise OS/2 is indeed dead.

we quit 16bit for 32 in 1993 and ironically quit 32 for 64bit in 2013. over the years we have spent hundreds of thousands on OS/2 related projects but alas that has ended. if you are on the fence, give up. even siguard in one of his reviews gave windows the nod as better. after six months and a bit of a learning curve, i am ashamed to say as a technical type that i let sentiment blind me to the fact that OS/2 is hopelessly obsolete and completely inferior to OSX and windows.


Fr4nk

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Re: Is eComStation DEAD?
« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2014, 09:32:18 am »
At the end eCs / os2 dies when you can't use it anymore and this depends on what you want to do. When someone claimes eCs or OS2 are dead then it is not dead, it is just dead for him.

I still love the Workplaceshell, Rexx, I still think Mesa is the best spreadsheet application around. I like the performance of eCs on a  fanless 2x2,1 GHz computer - I enjoy the silence. I enjoy the easy use of PMView preparing pictures in seconds using batchmode. I enjoy it to explore crazy things Imagemagick can do. I still use it as a client for my Wordpress blog doing web publishing, and using Maul for desktop publishing. I still use my own ePDF and the great GhostScript to produce first class PDFs files. I also enjoy it to install this system and use it so long without to change the system itself that in meanwhile I forget how I installed and configured it once. :) Its the kind of anachronism I like.

Of course there are also things I hate but you know.