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IBM`s response to the 2nd petition letter

Started by Saijin_Naib, 2008.01.22, 00:03:14

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Saijin_Naib

Well, thats kind of balls isnt it?

Oh well, its what I expected at least :\

agrisea

Now everyone in the world knows how IBM lost the Operating System battle (Windows vs. OS/2).. The response letter is typical IBM and I suspect the person who wrote it has never even seen OS/2.

What a sad world we live in. :(

kim

I agree that this reply was truly disappointing; but I think that IBM just went for the easy road here and they might need to get some more good arguments why they should open up the code. Also, as stated earlier, we're actually not asking IBM to open up the entire code, just the portions that we would need to get further on with our different projects.

Among other there has been discussions to point out specific section and patents of the code that we could like to get IBM to open. As well we really need the Linux community to tag along on this one, but they need more information why the should and what they could gain. As well does IBM. But, at least we got a reply this time, we didn't get that the first time.

John

This is very disappointing news indeed, I had high hopes that that they would at least consider releasing portions of the code. Taking a look at both Novells' and Suns' business practices, one can see that both the Corporate and end users of their products have much to gain. ie openSUSE vs SLED vs SLES - the openSUSE version is freely available for download vs the bought and registered version of either SLED or SLES gives you customer support + any other benefits. Novell can also gain from the open source community by the fact that code from the open source community can be utilized in their business editions. I'd imagine Sun has similar tradeoff with it's Solaris offering. Solaris 10 is free to download after registering on their site + there is also huge online community and developer help. Imagine IBM and SSI played similar game 10years ago, bet a whole lotta issues would  have been fixed and all those Big Corporate customers IBM lost to M$ would have gone back to OS/2.

Best now to support the Voyager Project IMHO.

Cheers,

John.

TheNerd

It would have been nice to see how an open sourced OS/2 would have benefited Voyager and eCS. Ohh well, maybe we can still convince IBM to open source some stuff if the focus is shifted more towards the specific components rather than, at least, what seems to be the entire OS.

I dunno...
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lazy


Fernando Celio

This is a non-response.

May be IBM is afraid of what an Open Source OS could be done to their business. Specially one that they were unable to did it a success.

OK, let us know what parts are copyrighted protect and we will turn the tables.

Regards, Fernando.

a30guy

It seems to me that the reasons IBM will not open-source OS/2 have been well known for some time, so their response is predictable. However, open-sourcing is not the only way to increase interest in OS/2. Perhaps it might be more productive to petition IBM to make OS/2 available for free download. It would still be closed-source, but it would be an opportunity to expand the user base.

aussiebear

First of all, my OS/2 experience was many years ago, with OS/2 Warp, I think it was. (back when Windows 95 was released, a friend let me try it for a few hours).

Quote from: kimhav on 2008.01.22, 00:27:32
I agree that this reply was truly disappointing; but I think that IBM just went for the easy road here and they might need to get some more good arguments why they should open up the code. Also, as stated earlier, we're actually not asking IBM to open up the entire code, just the portions that we would need to get further on with our different projects.

Among other there has been discussions to point out specific section and patents of the code that we could like to get IBM to open. As well we really need the Linux community to tag along on this one, but they need more information why the should and what they could gain. As well does IBM. But, at least we got a reply this time, we didn't get that the first time.

Correct. IBM is brushing you aside with that response.

While I don't represent the entire Linux community, I am an active user and understand the community. The question is:

* What can you offer that we can't do ourselves?
* What can you offer which we haven't addressed?

Your approach in petition is ineffective, because you haven't given IBM a legitimate business proposal to work on.

* Why would they bother with OS/2, when they've made investments in Linux?
* How can you reason with them to re-invest in OS/2 by opening specific portions of the code up?
* Which opensource license do you propose this code be under? GPL? BSD? etc.
* How is IBM gonna release the code as there are potential legal/patent issues with Microsoft?
* If there are parts you need that are patent problematic, how would you propose to work around them? (Are you gonna do what we do in the open source world, and code around the problem?)
* Can you justify the IBM legal people needed, to comb through any documented specs or source code? (This is what one must do to avoid potential legal issues, especially if there is MS code in there!)

You need to answer these types of questions and prove to IBM, beyond any doubt, why they should release the specific portions of code you need.

Present it to the right people, and do it in person.

Quote from: John on 2008.01.22, 00:54:04
This is very disappointing news indeed, I had high hopes that that they would at least consider releasing portions of the code. Taking a look at both Novells' and Suns' business practices, one can see that both the Corporate and end users of their products have much to gain. ie openSUSE vs SLED vs SLES - the openSUSE version is freely available for download vs the bought and registered version of either SLED or SLES gives you customer support + any other benefits. Novell can also gain from the open source community by the fact that code from the open source community can be utilized in their business editions. I'd imagine Sun has similar tradeoff with it's Solaris offering. Solaris 10 is free to download after registering on their site + there is also huge online community and developer help. Imagine IBM and SSI played similar game 10years ago, bet a whole lotta issues would  have been fixed and all those Big Corporate customers IBM lost to M$ would have gone back to OS/2.

Best now to support the Voyager Project IMHO.

Cheers,

John.

You have to understand, Linux isn't potentially patent incumbent, (despite the Microsoft fear campaigning).

There isn't Microsoft involvement in our code, and thus, no potential legal issues to fear of. (MS knows it, and so does everyone else that tinkers with Linux). Not to mention, the GPL is a license that MS doesn't like, because they can't abuse and exploit it. (They've tried and failed.)

In Sun's case, they own their code, and chose to open it up on their own initiative. No MS involvement here. While they have made an investment in open source, they have mainly focused on their own Solaris rather than on Linux. (even though they may sell Linux in some of their hardware). They mainly chose to be open source friendly on they own accord.

OS/2 is a whole different story. Microsoft was involved in the development of that operating system. There is a high probability that MS will take legal action against IBM, if IBM chose to release OS/2 code. Why would IBM get into a patent shooting match with Microsoft when they don't have to? From a business perspective, its like shooting yourself in the foot. They won't take that risk.

Overall, the probability of getting IBM to open up specific parts of OS/2 is going to be low.

My suggestion is that you folks should band together and start an opensource project to reverse engineer (clean room approach) OS/2, and write your own OS/2 variant from scratch. Place it under the General Public License (GPL) version 3, so no one will screw with you.

Now before you say anything, this process is being applied to the ReactOS Project.
http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

ReactOS is a Windows NT clone written from scratch, but under various open source licenses. (GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser General Public License, and the BSD License). Because of the way they're "reverse engineering" things, (clean room approach), MS can't do anything to them. Its no different to Wine. (A compatibility layer that allows you to run Windows apps in Linux).

The only way for OS/2 to thrive, is to open source it. To open source it, it must be free of potential legal issues. To be free of them, there is no choice but to start from scratch. While painstaking it may sound, it essentially guarantees OS/2 will live on without legal issues standing in the way.

Well, I did some digging, and you don't have to start totally from scratch. :)

osFree
http://www.osfree.org/doku/

QuoteosFree project is an attempt to build an open source OS/2 clone.

osFree is a open source free (non-commercial) software development project. Goals of the projects are to replace all (or most) of OS/2's subsystems with open-source analogues. The base compatibility system is OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin), but that doesn't mean we won't be supporting features of newer versions of OS/2 like OS/2 WarpServer for e-business and eComStation by Serenity Systems.

Robert Deed

Then it is time to start taking names for the 2008 petition.. =)

cyberspittle


Saijin_Naib

hehe, Seinfeld. So, what components MUST be open-sourced to us for eCS to keep on progressing?

GregoryNZL

#12
If you put a positive spin on this.... I think it's great you finally got a response from IBM. What you now need to do is consider the other options.

Coercing IBM to make OS/2 freely available again would definitely attract more users. I have never used the OS but am interested. Don't let the ball drop now that the issue is fresh in their mind.

Why not consider re-creating the OS somewhat like the Haiku project is doing.

kim

Agreed positive in that way that we know who to talk to now and I think that when I've had the time to go through the e-mails I've received so far I guess that we will have some kind of interesting feedback that we will be able to use. As mentioned earlier I did during the first petition round receive information from both WPS and kernel developers that had another view on what could be released and not. Even if I agree with that IBM closed the door, once again, it's just matter of finding the correct buttons to press to be able to open it. Here we sure need the skilled people that have a good insight in the OS2 code of what part we would like to peak at and what we would need open sourced. So I really welcome feedback, either in this forum or directly to me via e-mail, from former developers and as well for current developers that have the proper knowledge regarding the code.

djm63

what about os/2 PPC? Was there any MS involvement in that? If it was open source it would allow people to port to Intel if required, ,and there are a number of cheap PPC boards (efika for one) that are crying out for a decent OS and apps. (I know linux runs on the efika, but most modern apps are slow - on an OS/2 kernel they would fly!)
Just a thought ;)