QT5 simplebrowser

[Neil Waldhauer]

I purchased RJ CD writer when I was using ecomstation but the license apparently doesn't work on Arcaos... since it was locked to ECS... so that money was just down the drain.

RSJ CD-Writer works just fine under ArcaOS here. You know, the final version of RSJ CD-Writer was built with IBM CSet++ 2.1. RSJ was always quite particular about the environment and it still is, since nothing really changed for a long time. I only use it for USB since the ArcaOS DVD Tools is much better anyway, for my needs.

[Martin Iturbide]

But, will ArcaOS be the only future for OS/2? I am still very happy to use the AN Software Subscription for Drivers to have an up to date Warp 4.52 without ANPM (this is my special vision of using OS/2).

I agree that I also don't think legacy OS/2 users & ecomstation users should be "locked out" of the castle like criminals.
Unfortunately the os/2 community seems to be taking a bit of a dark tone as of recently from what i've seen.

While I appreciate all the great work Arca Noae has done - Lewis Rosenthal has strongly implied on this forum in the past that he considers people that don't keep their subscriptions "active" bad customers.and that kind of attitude is being displayed here as well.

I get that the platform needs resources but it's definitely getting old - since the only thing keeping me using the OS is my interest in it which could disappear rather quickly. I've spent more money on the platform then I really even have gotten back.. for example I purchased access to openoffice not once but twice and haven't even really used it yet at all.
I purchased my arcaos iso and then forgot to download it on time and ended up "updating" just to get access to my iso again.
I purchased RJ CD writer when I was using ecomstation but the license apparently doesn't work on Arcaos... since it was locked to ECS... so that money was just down the drain.
If anything people owe me money back from the return on investment i've gotten as of lately:). (I jest there lol since I don't expect money back from my own decisions)

It would be better to motivate people with positivity from the way I see it..... or I could start sending people a bill to punish all the companies that iv'e foolishly spent money on .

Hi David

I appreciate your concern and I understand that you like a lot the platform. Sadly the  dark tone that you talked about it is not new, as a community we had a frustration of being left high and dry by several companies in the past.

How many times did OS/2 died?, and this is a personal opinion with approx dates.
1) Around 1996 - When the rumors started inside IBM that Lou Gerstner was going to stop OS/2 development.
2) On 1999 - When IBM announced that OS/2 was only going to be updated as Server
3) On 2004 - When IBM announced OS/2 end of marketing
4) On 2006 - When OS/2 reached the End of Life.
5) On 2007 - When we didn't know what was going on with eComstation since we didn't hear anymore from Serenity Systems
6) On 2014 - When we didn't know what was going on with eComStation since we didn't hear anymore from Mensys.  (It was bought by XEU and we didn't hear any news from both)
Others may add other important milestones and dates that they consider an OS/2 death. In fact, all these deaths is what made me an open source advocate, since with open source we can inherit in a legal way the source code and reduce the risk of the next death.

So, maybe you get the frustration that we have from the past.

David, since this is getting repetitive, I suggest you should remain posting this kind of comments on your "Well ArcaOS 5.0 is probably the last version for me." thread, since your latest posts where not related to the "QT5 simplebrowser".

Regards

[David Kiley]

Then they have a subscription and they let it expire and then 2 or 3 years later want to buy a subscription when they need support.


As for your point about RSJ I can comment on RSJ to some extend. eComStation came with a limited version of RSJ and it had to tied to eComStation somehow. I know because I made the deal with RSJ uears ago. That said the full license of RSJ you can/could buy should just work on ArcaOS. Its the version that came with eComStation that only runs on eCS. Did you accidently somehow install the version from RSJ for eCS ? Or was there update version that was also tied to eCS ? I can not remember 100% for certain. Its about 15 years ago.

Roderick

Yeah I get that funding is needed. But I don't get the attitude that a previous paying customer is "bad". I mean they made money on that original transaction. Could they have made more from that same customer.. yeah but on the other hand it's not their money to decide how it should be spent until they earn it.

Regarding RSJ - I have a key file and it didn't work with ArcaOS. I looked at the text of the file and it specifically references ECS so I think my license was limited to ECS. Which kind of bothers me since I purchased it for the full price.
To be fair I haven't contacted the developer yet - maybe they would work something out with me.

[David Kiley]

David, since this is getting repetitive, I suggest you should remain posting this kind of comments on your "Well ArcaOS 5.0 is probably the last version for me." thread, since your latest posts where not related to the "QT5 simplebrowser".

Regards

Um.. actually it was related to the simple browser. There was an implication that more people downloading the browser then donating was somehow bad - and I connected it to the attitude that people who previously purchased arcaos licenses are also being painted as somehow "bad".
AKA A negative tone that very much is relevant to the thread.. I'm just saying that tone is getting tiresome. Like stop counting chickens before you get the eggs. And if you get the eggs than have enough grace to be thankful not resentful.

But on the positive side if/when I plan to get anther ArcaOS license it will be from Neil Waldhauer .. and I recommend others do the same.

[Roderick Klein]

There was an implication that more people downloading the browser then donating was somehow bad - and I connected it to the attitude that people who previously purchased arcaos licenses are also being painted as somehow "bad".

Where did LewisRosenthal write that then ?

Roderick

[Roderick Klein]

There was an implication that more people downloading the browser then donating was somehow bad - and I connected it to the attitude that people who previously purchased arcaos licenses are also being painted as somehow "bad".
AKA A negative tone that very much is relevant to the thread.. I'm just saying that tone is getting tiresome. Like stop counting chickens before you get the eggs. And if you get the eggs than have enough grace to be thankful not resentful.

People consider negative what I wrote, at least I think you are refering to what I wrote.

I will put it simple. I do not consider it unfair to appeal to people to make a donation to Bitwise works for the development of software they effectively provide free of charge. The warning has been coming for years for BWW that they need funding in order continue development.
Now the funding is running out. The new browser and most of the DLL's in rpm.netlabs.org are being ported and maintained by Bitwise Works.
It will get finished but it will be slowed down. We are pretty close.

Does the community want this development to stop yes or no, that is the key question ?

What I pointed out is that nobody had a clue how many private OS/2 we have. It seems nobody tried to figure out to even start to understand how viable asking for sponsorship from the community. And to be honest I also did not know. Arca Noae never released any numbers how many licenses they sold of ArcaOS. I do have an impression of the size of the community when I worked at Mensys until 2013.

I came up with the idea to see how many people used Arca Noae Package Manager to download updates from rpm.netlabs.org.
These updates are being provided free of charge to the community by BWW. Now that not everybody makes donation I can understand.
There are 500 to 600 users (measurement over 6 weeks during a summer vacation). I personally think we have way more private OS/2 users but not everybody has ANPM installed or they do not run it. I have seen users at Dutch user group meetings that do not know that ANPM is in the
System setup folder in an ArcaOS installation. My overal impression that we have at least a few thousand OS/2 users world wide.

While BWW is German Limited company in 2020 Silvan Scherrer, co owner of BWW, put in 7000 Euro of his own money to contribute to the salary of Dmitry so he could be paid to continue development. Effectively it runs at a loss BWW. Over the last 2 months I put in 1000 Euro to help getting the new browser out.

Here is the interview with DMitry and the explaining how big the percentage is of people donating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltHLPz-VBA
The portion about the new browser and the financial position of BWW starts at 04:09:05.
Portion about the financial stuff starts at 04:40:00.

Basically OS/2 VOICE collected about 25000 Euro of the money invested in the QT /webkit port. That is about 55% of total amount of money
spent on this project. The amount of people who donated to VOICE are about 100 users. What I am trying to make clear is that we have pretty good inside how many people are donating. And of the 100 donors the bulk of the money came from about 10 people.
One person donated 10.000 Dollars.

If we indeed have a few thousand users in the community and 100 people are donating
well that is pretty low if you ask me...

But do you guys want to see the development for OS/2 by BWW stop yes or no ?
And if you guys do not want to stop how do we collect money then ?

Even if people could donate 10 or 20 Euro's a year that would help a lot, but that is not happening...
I am not marketing guy, I am tech guy.  If the above is presented negative, well sorry.

That is the reality we are in.

Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Roderick

I insist that the problem is not the goal, or raising money for it. The problem is how you are requesting the funds. Instead of complaining about the people that do not contribute, you need to inspire people to help. Do it in a positive way and do not fall into frustration. I think you did good things to raise funds, but trying to crunch statistics to find the "bad people" that do not contribute will make you look desperate instead of helping the final goal.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

Martin the positive articles have already been published, from my point of view at least. BWW has been warning for years they need funding.
Anything wrong with how I wrote the QT update news letters on articles.os2voice.org ? Then let me know. Where they to negative ?

Martin I have tried to inspire people with my newsletters but it did not work, that is bottom line.

Is it positive that Silvan pays 7000 Euro out of his pocket in 2020 to keep Dmitry working on porting code ?
I paid 1000 Euro in total over the last 2 months to the BWW webshop from money I made during my dayjob.

I can not speak for Silvan I would cetainly be willing to continue doing this donating money to BWW.
But only if more people would contribute. For me and the small group of donors that have kept the funding flowing it does not feel right.
Even if people would donate 10 or 20 Euro's.  And i am not expecting everybody to be so wild and crazy about OS/2 as you and me are. But it would be big encouragement if more people made smaller donations.


I am not chruncing statistics, its rather simple. I rather try to make an *estimate* how many people are left in the OS/2 community. I always hear/heard that the community is to small to fund these type of projects. But we have _no_ clue how big the community actually is, or do we ? That is exactly why I asked Adrian for ANPM statistics from rpm.netlabs.org to make somewhat of estimate how many private users are left. Instead of making wild guess how many users are left world wide. Then to find out OS/2 VOICE has 100 email addresses of paypal donors was kind of blow to me away... Then consider that we collected the bulk of the money and we have 109 donators. Me and the people at BWW  also need some positive developments to be encouraged for change...

BWW has been asking for years for extra donations and making clear what BWW does for OS/2. So how was that message not delivered possitive and clearly ?

I am tech guy with an IT background and I am not marketing expert. I have some idea how to communicate but the message is simple.
We have been asking for money to continue the OS/2 development, we are running out of funding.
We think its possible to continue doing this development...

So tell me what is missing in the messages we send out then via articles.os2voice.org ?

I am out of idea's.

Roderick

[Sigurd Fastenrath]

Basically OS/2 VOICE collected about 25000 Euro of the money invested in the QT /webkit port. That is about 55% of total amount of money
spent on this project. The amount of people who donated to VOICE are about 100 users. What I am trying to make clear is that we have pretty good inside how many people are donating. And of the 100 donors the bulk of the money came from about 10 people.
One person donated 10.000 Dollars.
Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE

What is getting me tired, and sometimes getting on my nerves, is that you still count everything "as collected by OS2VOICE". As I mentioned already in my Post in February a lot has been an effort of the german os2.de users, where we started several donation campaigns.

I do not know what the reason for this kind of "counting" is, that is beyond my mind, but as I said in February, one can not do things in a more discourageing way.

As I estimated then, "we" collected at least 10.000 to 13.000 Euros, I even donated one Lenovo X250 Laptop in 2019 during our User Meeting in Cologne for a raffle....

I do not want a special "thank you" from bww because the money they got is really well invested money. It is OK the way it is, that is fine. But allways this "OS2 VOICE" make it possible and so on...

You are doing a really well job, Roderick, but I guess you are not the only one. There is, what is left of it, the whole community supporting this project. Everyone as he/she/it can.

[Roderick Klein]

Basically OS/2 VOICE collected about 25000 Euro of the money invested in the QT /webkit port. That is about 55% of total amount of money
spent on this project. The amount of people who donated to VOICE are about 100 users. What I am trying to make clear is that we have pretty good inside how many people are donating. And of the 100 donors the bulk of the money came from about 10 people.
One person donated 10.000 Dollars.
Roderick Klein
President OS/2 VOICE

What is getting me tired, and sometimes getting on my nerves, is that you still count everything "as collected by OS2VOICE". As I mentioned already in my Post in February a lot has been an effort of the german os2.de users, where we started several donation campaigns.

I do not know what the reason for this kind of "counting" is, that is beyond my mind, but as I said in February, one can not do things in a more discourageing way.

As I estimated then, "we" collected at least 10.000 to 13.000 Euros, I even donated one Lenovo X250 Laptop in 2019 during our User Meeting in Cologne for a raffle....

I do not want a special "thank you" from bww because the money they got is really well invested money. It is OK the way it is, that is fine. But allways this "OS2 VOICE" make it possible and so on...

You are doing a really well job, Roderick, but I guess you are not the only one. There is, what is left of it, the whole community supporting this project. Everyone as he/she/it can.

When you mentioned it last time, I corrected that. I  estimate VOICE collected 25.000 Euro (about 55%)  In my Warpstock presentation yesterday I did credit the German community. You can find that in the youtube video stream the attached presentation.  Note the presentation slides where put togheter during dinner on Saturday evening. So I hope its accurate enough.  It should have  stated German speaking community BTW.

Here you can find the slides included after the interview with Dmitry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eltHLPz-VBA
The presentation slides are located at around  04:40:00.

For historical records this pie charts represents the sponsorship to BWW for the QT/webklit engine browser project.

Roderick

[Sigurd Fastenrath]

I was not able to watch Warpstock Europe when you presented this slides, and have to apologize for being to harsh with my words.

But I still think it is better to name it a community and not "only or main" OS2VOICE project or goal.

And please keep in mind, several suffered heavy economic losses because of the Corona Pandemie.

For me, i.e., it was and is more important to Support the home for homeless Kids in Chenai/India, that some people here Support for 15 Years now, than having a new Browser for OS/2. While the home has to be closed for now because of goverment restrictioncs we donate for Rice, Walter and food, to keep people alive.

I do not mention this for fishing for compliments, jutst to bring the actual situation of donating reasons in a bigger context. 

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi again Roderick.

The things that you are doing good, are fine. The ebay auctions, the newsletter, Warpstock demos, that is good and positive. Raising "44880 €" for Qt5/new browser port is a record for the community and it had never been done before and according to Bitwise it required to reach 49000 €.

But, saying that there are "1000 bad users", that "leach the rpm server", is not going to make them contribute, even if it true or a fact. It is even backfiring, because it can make people that contributed feel bad thinking that they are being used by that "1000 bad users/leachers". Please understand that this is not something about money, facts, statistics, it is about how you are making feel the people.

You may be right, but  you are getting people annoyed. Stop posting this kind of things and start posting good things about the goal and the potential, because you are starting to loose credibility (or you may be burned out because you are taking this goal as death or life).

The rest, please help bitwise works to raise the money, THEY CAN DELIVER !!!!
It is 92% now.

Regards

[Roderick Klein]

I was not able to watch Warpstock Europe when you presented this slides, and have to apologize for being to harsh with my words.

But I still think it is better to name it a community and not "only or main" OS2VOICE project or goal.

And please keep in mind, several suffered heavy economic losses because of the Corona Pandemie.

For me, i.e., it was and is more important to Support the home for homeless Kids in Chenai/India, that some people here Support for 15 Years now, than having a new Browser for OS/2. While the home has to be closed for now because of goverment restrictioncs we donate for Rice, Walter and food, to keep people alive.

I do not mention this for fishing for compliments, jutst to bring the actual situation of donating reasons in a bigger context.

I am perfectly aware of the situation people in poor countries are in duo to Corona. Especially if you have little to no income. We can complain here in Western Europe but we get vaccines within no time and the rich countries had plenty of money to backup companies. People in poor countries where the health care system is less robust and the government financial support is not around have a very hard time.

I will think about naming it differently this collaborative effort. I just thought OS/2 VOICE is well known in the OS/2 community also for people not checking OS/2 news that often.

I was hoping more people would contribute 10 Dollars is welcome if just more people would do that. And yes the German community has contributed percentage wise bigtime.  But I also get the impression its small core group that donated.

Roderick

P.S. I just checked it seems I am almost 18 years now chairman of OS/2 VOICE. I am getting old :-)

[David Kiley]

Where did LewisRosenthal write that then ?
Roderick

Hi Roderick, I'm refering to this thread:
https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php/topic,2452.0.html

Specifically this part:
Ivan: If your subscription is in force, then you have no rush. The point was for the folks who let their subscriptions lapse (think: early adopters, who purchased ArcaOS 5.0 in May of 2017 with six months included subscription and then never renewed). It's simply not fair to everyone who does renew on time to have people go three years and then re-up for another year at a fraction of the cost of a new license. Everyone else is funding development in the meantime. (And frankly, the vast majority of ArcaOS licensees do renew early or on time, probably because we continue to crank out new stuff and we work tirelessly to address trouble tickets. </shameless plug>)

The part about painting those opting to buy a subscription license later is somehow being "unfair" to others doesn't sit well with me.
I don't think someone who uses their ECS license or their early ArcaOS license owes other people anything.
They paid for the product in the first place. A person that is using something they purchased legally are not a leech.
But maybe i'm being too sensitive about that.

[David Kiley]

If we indeed have a few thousand users in the community and 100 people are donating
well that is pretty low if you ask me...

But do you guys want to see the development for OS/2 by BWW stop yes or no ?
And if you guys do not want to stop how do we collect money then ?

I get were you are coming from.
One idea I have is the donate page on os2voice.org should be more clear. Right now if you go to the the homepage and click the sponsorship tab I don't see anything about donating to the browser or BWW.
Unless I am blind .
I did find it on one of your posts here:
http://articles.os2voice.org/category/software/24-new-web-browser-for-os-2-is-with-reach.html
But why not make it more prominent and include it in the main navigation?