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OS/2 Licensing
JTA:
OS/2 (ms & ibm versions) are, for me, Whack-A-MOS's (Whack-A-Mole OS's) ...
They are copyright and enjoined on paper & shrinkwrap, and by copyright law, but because their copyright owners have mostly abandoned them, it's now moot. Add to that the Internet distribution models of today (archive.org, many others), they can no longer be "contained" (restricted). Finally, virtualization capabilities of modern hardware and software allow anything, from any time, to be explored & tested. Availability is not containable for pretty much any piece of software from any time period, unlike the old days.
This means these OS's will pop their heads up in many configurations and uses, and it would be up to MS, IBM, and others to decide if that head, as popped up, warrants "whacking" (egregious use warrants whacking by cease&desist, lawsuits, etc.; casual use does not, at this time).
ArcaOS is an exception, as it is a modern OS, licensed and enforced in such a way that you know who is redistributing it (illegally), and the owners (AN) can go after it if any such illegal use head pops up. It is also small enough that it has escaped modern developer attention (hacking it's distribution model in any form).
My own use case? "I see dead OS's ..."
... and then I bring them back to life (with virtualization software), and put them to use again! There are infinite possibilities here. This ranges from DOS and earlier, to OS/2 and later, Win and later, and many others ... I even have a mainframe running in virtualization (this is a little trickier to get it to do something useful for me, but I'm working on it).
So, if you can get at an OS (or any piece of software), make use of it ... just don't let your head rise up too far to where it gets noticed, and position yourself for whacking ...
Doug Clark:
If someone wants to run a older copy of OS/2 it is pretty simple, and cheap, to buy a copy from ebay. This avoids any potential legal issues.
Finding a used copy of eCS will probably be harder. From the viewpoint of running Win-OS/2 I think there is very little advantage to eCS over a earlier version of AOS - meaning what will run in eCS v 2.x will probably also run in AOS version 5.0 It is when you get to later versions of AOS that I have seen some Win-OS/2 issues start to appear. And most of those Win-OS/2 issues that I have experienced can be fixed by running limited to one CPU.
Whether those issues would appear in eCS or AOS running in a virtual machine I don't know. It would be interesting to hear from someone that is running Win-OS/2 in either eCS or AOS in a virtual machine.
Andrew Stephenson:
Thanks for the feedback, to what I posted and to others' comments. A HappyNewYear-2025.0 to all!
The points about the purchase/acquisition of eCS being restricted by copyright is a nuisance; but, as someone who has copyrighted material Out There, I accept it.
Roderick: No, I have not (yet) opened a ticket on the DOS session problems. For two reasons: (1) I am bogged down in work that must be done as soon as possible but seems likely to keep me busy at least for another month; (2) knowing what to report is tricky, because different problems appear with different applications. I'd probably be happy to supply Arca Noae's boffins with an entire copy of WS-7c, that being (with Borland Quattro Pro, which mostly works okay) my main tool. But it has to wait.
(BTW, around now someone will be tempted to mention WordTsar. I have tried it and am impressed with what its author has achieved so far; but I do not dare rely on it until it is finished and sufficiently bullet proofed.)
It would be lovely if AN could debug the DOS/Win-3.1 (and how about Linux &c?) sessions of AOS-5+. Having asked here, I shall ponder the answers and see what I can achieve, once my prior devoirs are dealt with.
Roderick Klein:
--- Quote from: Dave Yeo on December 30, 2024, 05:10:54 pm ---ArcaNoae can't sell eCS as much of it is copyrighted by Mensys or their successor. Look at https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/os2-ecs-drivers-software-subscription-personal-renewal/ for upgrading your eCS and which drivers you can update.
--- End quote ---
Having worked at Mensys I know what type of contract Arca Noae most likely has. IBM licenses OS/2 via a so called ASL contract. The product can not be named OS/2 and has to have different name.
Even if its an OS/2 product, IBM legal perspective how they understand see it legally as different product. So you can not for example buy a license of ArcaOS and then run for example MCP 4.52.
While Mensys provided an upgrade license, no discount was given by IBM to Mensys for the upgrade licenses sold. Again simply because IBM does not consider eCS as an OS/2 product.
Technically its an OS/2 product, legally not....
As for using the driver package on eCS. I just wonder how much trouble its worth. So many other OS components in ArcaOS have also been updated and getting update install media with eCS
can be done with the new drivers. But its a big headache. eCS 2.1 was released in 2011. And I can not even to start mentioning how many bugs have been fixed in ArcaOS you miss out on with
eCS or Warp 4 even. I am not saying it can not be done. But its really for the brave solls :-)
Roderick
Neil Waldhauer:
If someone wants to try OS/2, and downloads a copy from the Internet, I doubt they can get in trouble with IBM, even if they are violating license terms.
It's different for someone who wants to offer OS/2 software. IBM may have issues with someone distributing OS/2 parts and fixpaks. Here on OS/2 World, we don't even give links to unofficial OS/2 media and fixes. But OS/2 has been off the market for 18 years.
Is there some time limit after which OS/2 licensing doesn't matter?
Have we already reached that time?
When can a business or other organization offer OS/2 parts without licensing restrictions?
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