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The OS/2 Community and the next 2019 year

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Martin Iturbide:
Hi

What do you think it will be interesting to do on the 2019 as community efforts for the platform?

The obvious for me will be to:
1) Keep supporting Arca Noae with ArcaOS.
2) Keep supporting Bitwise works to produce more open source software on 2019.
3) Support individual developers creating and porting software to this platform.

But what about from the community side and what us as individuals can do for the platform?
And I know we are already doing things like:
- People helping people on the forums.
- Insisting on collecting open source code and asking for more code to be released as open.
- Documenting EDM/2 and OS2World wiki.
- Articles, blog posts and videos posted from time to time on the Internet.
- Hobbes keeps sharing files and OS2site also collecting things.
(those came at the top of my mind right now)

But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

There is no right or wrong answer, just want to brainstorm a little bit.

Regards

Wilfried:

--- Quote ---But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

--- End quote ---

Try to make OS/2 interesting for potential users.

Martin Iturbide:

--- Quote from: Eike on December 27, 2018, 04:43:15 pm ---
--- Quote ---But what other ideas do you have for next year that can be produced by the community?

--- End quote ---

Try to make OS/2 interesting for potential users.

--- End quote ---

That is a good one. Sadly it is a problem without a clear solution. (here goes the long technicolor dreaming reply)

For the moment ArcaOS is an operating system to support OS/2 users (and business) to run the platform on newer hardware. I even talk about it with Lewis (Arca Noae) like two years ago when he was starting with ArcaOS, and that was the focus for ArcaOS initial days. For what I know (and what I can see on the test group) AN is working hard to bugfix, translate and try to create newer driver for ArcaOS on these days. So, trying to find more potential new (non OS/2) users is not on their main goal now, they try to support people/companies that uses and know OS/2 (or eCS) instead of attracting new ones. This is what I understand is the general AN strategy for the moment, but it is always to ask them directly.

Thinking more about it, what can attract other kind of users to this platform with all the lack of drivers that we have?

Idea 1 - Being cool:  Operating Systems is no longer about who had the best technology and cutting edge development. At the backend it had just to work, and on the frontend it has to look cool, which mean the frontend has to be appealing to the user.

Idea 2 - Finding a Niche: Finding a niche for OS/2 or ArcaOS is hard, we already use it as a desktop operating system, but competition is hard with a open source Linux and a Windows bundled on each PC. So finding a niche of industrial equipment, car radios, portable devices or anything that may be hot for the consumer will be desirable, but choosing an OS for a device between a $230 OS and a free of charge Linux / Android is always a challenge.

Idea 3 - Working on a Open Source Future: I came to the conclusion that the OS can not have a future while it's source code is controlled by IBM. Since IBM is not doing anything with OS/2's source code, non OS/2 users will not be willing to jump to the OS/2 train while Linux is open and while Windows is everywhere. So the idea will be to transform and progressively try to replace OS/2 components with open source replacements that offers a decent level of compatibility. It will never be an 100% exactly and compatible OS/2, but if we have a 60% of compatibility it will be good enough for a a lot of users. And at that moment, when it is shown that there is an OS not controlled by a single company that can screw you, it may have a path to grow and attract new users and markets. But this is a lot of work and people just get scared about thinking on cloning OS/2. (cheers to the people that don't get scared easily).

So,  to attract new users we can have from "idea 1" to the "idea n", mix the ideas, merge them and crunch them, but it is required money, time, vision, courage and good attitude :)

Going back to earth, it will be interesting to hear more ideas of what can be done on 2019 as a community.

Regards

Martin Iturbide:
Hi again.

A more "down to earth" idea for the 2019 that is ringing my mind is to try to make a RPM OS/2 software repository and re-package some OS/2 software as RPM and put them on a different RPM server.

I don't want to use the netlabs RPM server since maybe loading Netlabs with games, new ported programs and old OS/2 programs will not be the best idea. I don't want to mix thing, since I wanted a less strict RPM repository for everyone to upload their packages and try to get a RPM spec consensus and easy to use templates for people to upload things.

OS2VOICE wanted to create his own RPM server and it looked like a good idea going that way, but it haven't created the server yet. So I was also wondering how hard or easy can be to configure an RPM server.

Regards

RickCHodgin:
My vision has not changed.  I plan to begin full-time development on ES/2 around Christmas 2019.  I plan to work on ES/1 in segments/snippets over the summer, and I plan to direct all of my personal developer efforts toward ES/2 in 2020.

I would do it sooner if I had funding.  I have to move on a progression as things are today.

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