IMO it is rather pointless to discuss this.
The probability of OS/2 and eCS becoming Open Source is next to zero. IBM would have to invest money to sort out license issues and prepare the release. There is little to be gained there on the non-pecuniary side, so unless there is a business case of sufficient size, it will not happen.
Creating an OS/2 clone might not be impossible technically, but practically the situation is such that it won't happen anyway. Such a project would be huge and take an awful lot of manpower. The number of developers who are skilled enough to pull this off and are still into OS/2 and eCS is small. If they worked on such a project in their spare-time, it would take about forever. Even if they could work on it full-time, it would take quite long. While they were working on it, other projects that are vital to the community would have to be put on the back-burner and technical progress would move on. I rather doubt that this would be of benefit.
The only way I can see for OS/2 technology to survive in the long run is by
Given that user-interfaces of OSes/distributions like Windows 8 and Ubuntu are taking the mobile route currently, which seems to put off quite a few people, there might actually be a window for the second option.
The probability of OS/2 and eCS becoming Open Source is next to zero. IBM would have to invest money to sort out license issues and prepare the release. There is little to be gained there on the non-pecuniary side, so unless there is a business case of sufficient size, it will not happen.
Creating an OS/2 clone might not be impossible technically, but practically the situation is such that it won't happen anyway. Such a project would be huge and take an awful lot of manpower. The number of developers who are skilled enough to pull this off and are still into OS/2 and eCS is small. If they worked on such a project in their spare-time, it would take about forever. Even if they could work on it full-time, it would take quite long. While they were working on it, other projects that are vital to the community would have to be put on the back-burner and technical progress would move on. I rather doubt that this would be of benefit.
The only way I can see for OS/2 technology to survive in the long run is by
- Coming up with something that is based on other OSS to minimize down the workload and is cool enough to draw developers from elsewhere, which is pretty much what Voyager was aiming to do first; or
- Injecting it into a current platform that has a large developer and user base.
Given that user-interfaces of OSes/distributions like Windows 8 and Ubuntu are taking the mobile route currently, which seems to put off quite a few people, there might actually be a window for the second option.