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IBM Won't Open-Source OS/2
Posted by
kdawson
on Tuesday January 22, @01:02AM
from the big-blue-meanies dept.
from the big-blue-meanies dept.
wikinerd writes "Following an online petition in November 2007 by members of an OS/2 online community to open-source OS/2, IBM answered by sending a letter via FedEx making it clear that OS/2 is going to remain closed-source, citing business, technical, and legal reasons. An earlier petition in 2005 that had attracted over 11,000 signatures met a similar response. Both petition letters to IBM Corp. can be viewed at the OS2World.com library. The End of Support period for OS/2 passed by in December 2006, and the given IBM's response the future for OS/2 doesn't look bright, unless re-implementation projects such as Voyager or osFree attract the necessary critical mass of operating system developers."
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it seems pretty important to note (Score:5, Funny)
It was then opened with a #2 pencil, and read sitting at a desk by office depot. They examined the contents of the letter while sipping on some folgers coffee.
I just thought we should have all of the important facts of the story here.
Bets anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
anyone wanna bet that IBM has some sort of outstanding contract that does actually prevent this? IBM is awfully friendly to OSS. I can't think the other two reasons matter that much in their eyes.
Re:Bets anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
IBM themselves have finally moved on, though. Their hardware management consoles still used OS/2 until a few years ago, but they're all Linux now.
Re:Bets anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
IBM doesn't want another SCO happening.
IBM won't? IBM CAN'T! (Score:4, Informative)
No news here people. Only common sense needed.
eComStation (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
MS Code issues I'd gather (Score:5, Interesting)
In retrospect I do believe that MS pulled the plug simply because of the "lock-in-factor" on their OS. (they don't share well with others) OS/2 was a very nice OS back in the day. And yes, it ran well.. was better than DOS and made Windows look like crap back in the day. (if ya never ran it, then mod yourself -1)
Variety of business, technical, and legal reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Business - We're sorry, some businesses are still using OS/2 for some mission critical stuff, we've reviewed the code and it's got some major security flaws. By making it open source, these companies who still use the software will be open to all sorts of attacks as we've stopped supporting the software and won't be releasing any new patches.
Technical - We want to fix all the flaws but it's not worth our time, we could release the code and have the community do it but most of these businesses lack the IT guys to do the massive updates on all their systems (otherwise they'd be using something other than OS/2) so they'd be open to attacks of anyone who cares enough to try.
Legal - We didn't write all of our own code, we borrowed from a few places and signed some agreements that say we can't show anyone else the code. We could make half the project open source but that'd be pretty useless and people will get on our case about not releasing all the code, then there's the whole exposing all the flaws problem, which leaves no one happy in this scenario.
Yes I know security through obscurity doesn't usually work, but this product has reached it's end of life, there won't be any more updates. IBM realizes they have some big customers using OS/2 for some pretty major stuff and if they were to just show the world OS/2s exploits, it might end badly for a company still relying on OS/2. They're probably not going to trust the community submitted patches (they can't afford to have the systems go down, and as far as they know the systems are rock solid so why chance bringing everything down to close a hole that someone MIGHT use to cause damage.) Then when something happens and someone causes some damage exploiting a hole, the company is going to sue IBM for releasing the code and making the attack possible.
Anyway, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
No big loss (Score:3, Informative)
Wistful Sigh.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I briefly went to Windows95, after my install disks died (bloody weird format, too). That didn't last long, and in a fury of frustration, I decided to look at Linux again.
I never looked back. Oh yes, I miss some things. I miss Workplace Shell most of all, but then KDE does most of what WPS did. Indeed, having Linux gives me a lot more useful stuff that I never even had with Warp or any other OS. I don't miss it so much anymore.
IBM had something great but didn't defend it very well in the marketplace. I'm probably better off having gone the Linux route.
--
BMO
OS/2 is awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1994, I worked for IBM and involved in testing of OS/2 (pre-warp time if my memory serves) in Hong Kong. I mainly helped testing business applications, especially Chinese apps. There's another team who were testing games(dream job right)?
The game team always invited me for 'professional opinions' because I were like a profession gamer to them. I managed to run 4 sessions of Ultima 8 in a 386. The gameplay play was smooth, even the opening video was being played without hiccup. Awesome. Imagine it's during the period when its top competitor Windows 95 would crash from time to time running one sessions of Ultima 8. I don't want to bore you with the details how great it run other applications, but I can tell you it can run more than one session of Windows 95 full-screen and windowed. (I heard Microsoft had some legal questions with that later on.. but still, OS/2 could really do that).
Don't laugh at OS/2, it sold, millions copies; some came along with PS/2, some were embedded in ATMs and cashiers. They stopped update and development since 2006, but still, OS/2 installed machines generates revenue for IBM, even today.
Where OS/2 failed was some top boneheads in IBM asked their major software competitor, Microsoft, to develop the initial OS/2 1.x. Microsoft still owns many of the royalties inside OS/2. The more OS/2 sold, the more Microsoft got. I've been told later IBM had difficult time in negotiations with Microsoft on lowering the royalties fee in new contracts, because, obviously, crushing OS/2 benefits Microsoft more than letting it survive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The bank i used to work for still has ATMs running on OS/2 procured specially from NCR.
Open-sourcing OS/2 is out of question legally for IBM, as OS/2 contracts with NCR and other companies specifically prohibit this.
Firstly IBM would be sued by l
what exactly does OS/2's source have to offer? (Score:3, Interesting)
I was a huge OS/2 Fan (Score:4, Insightful)
That being said, and while I'd love to poke through the source, I'd rather see some of the technologies and concepts from OS/2 opened up. I would just love to see what OSS could do for the Workplace Shell, for example. The WPS is STILL more advanced than any Windows shell ever has been. Just imagine where it might be today if developement hadn't stopped.
I also wouldn't mind seeing a compatability layer built for Linux, so that all my old OS/2 apps would work on a Linux kernel. If licensing is constrained then they could always (gasp!) put out a closed library and just expose the API.
None of it is likely to happen, but it would be nice.
Why OS/2 failed (Score:3, Insightful)
It's 1996, and I'm working at a university where the department IT guy is a rabid OS/2 fanatic. The whole department ran on Warp, but this brand new version of NT (4.0) has just come out with a Win95-like interface but decent internals, so the battle was on.
One day I wander down to the campus bookstore. They have copies of OS/2 in stock- the version with TCP/IP and a web browser was something like $200. Next to it was the development kit, in a plain box- $700.
On the other shelf is a copy of WinNT 4.0. $99. That $99 was the full version, and it included a full copy of Visual C++ as well.
IBM simply didn't care about the academic market at all. MS cares a *lot*- they learned from Apple that if you get people hooked earlier they are stuck with you for life.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
When they open sourced Object Rexx there was no OS/2 code included. Rumour has it that when Sun open sourced Staroffice IBM asked them to rip out all the OS/2 code. Luckily the code was left making it much easier to port OpenOffice. I'm sure there are more examples.
But why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not as if once they'd removed all the stuff didn't belong to them they'd be left with a working system, just random chunks of code, many of which will likely be somewhat worthless without the rest of the code that had to be removed.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM is big enough to fight it, no doubt, but they aren't going to make anywhere close to enough for it to be worth it from a business point of view. As much as I see IBM as a traditional corporation that only really sees OSS as a way to save money (why not have competent volunteers develop everything and only pay a few to vett the changes to make sure they are what you want?) I'll even bet they wish they could justify it - after all a "win" would probably boost shareholder confidence and most large companies generally like to stick it to their competition.
Then, of course, it may not be simply a case of "might maybe possibly in some way infringe upon their IP" and in fact totally 100% infringe upon it. In which case IBM isn't *ever* going to find it in their best interest do release it.
I, and the vast majority of people that read Slashdot, don't really know either (someone from IBM who worked on the project would need to weigh in). In any case if it were to make them money then they would do it. Given their past history I would guess if they felt they could get away with it they would (said "Good Will" has made them quite a bit of money). In fact I would also say the way they said "no" was an attempt at saying they wish they could - after all unless they wanted to send another message the easiest way to say "no" was to ignore it.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see IBM throwing money at Microsoft to open source their code, or Microsoft taking the money.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The SCO deal isn't really that relevant. Sun paid SCO for one of the few items of technology SCO actually owned the rights to - the ix86 device drivers in SCO Unix. The idea was to make Solaris more viable on ix86 hardware - previously it was very fussy a
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Solaris has remained a viable product under active development, allowing any code that Sun might not have had full rights to to be rewritten during the ordinary course of development. OS/2 has been effectively dead from a development standpoint for a long time. There has been no opportunity to write it away from outside code. Taking an existing, thriving, project (Solaris) and making it open source is orders of magnitude easier than pulling dead code from a long disbanded development group out of the dungeon and digging up from the grave people who remember what was what, in order to figure out how to open source it.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
IBM would have to do a lot more core-level rewriting than Sun did, because the core stuff is all Microsoft, and Microsoft isn't going to give it up. It's a lot more work for something people have a lot less interest in.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of things that can be sold that canno
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
If they don't have the copyright to it, they may not be able to.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:4, Informative)
I'll reply to you because you have the most reasonable of all the replies.
Repeating myself for the upteenth time:
I'm not objecting to IBM not wanting to open source OS/2. It'd be nice if they did but they have their reasons for not doing so that they've chosen to keep private. It could be things as simple as the not wanting to harm Serenity Systems, not wanting to cannibalize or confuse part of their linux market or not wanting to devote even minimal engineering effort to it.
I'm objecting to all the content-free mod'ed up comments saying, with no evidence at all, that IBM can't open source it for legal reasons. This is nonsense.
It all depends on the particular constituent licenses and copyright assignments. This is no different from on-selling. For pretty much any use of software, including open sourcing it, on-selling or feeding it to your dog, you have to check the constituent licenses and copyright assignments. Hand waving about how "open sourcing is impossible" is nonsense. It depends on the particular constituent licenses and copyright assignments. I really don't know how to make it any clearer.
There's way too many people on /. who think that open source licenses are legally mystically different from the myriad of commercial licenses out there. They're not.
Due to incessant marketing and branding there's also way too many people who think that a branded software package is an indivisible software blob that can't be split and merged as needed. Despite propaganda to the contrary, licenses both closed and open source are not viral and there's nothing legally stopping IBM open sourcing the majority of OS/2 that it does own outright, regardless of what the licenses and copyright assignments of the associated subsystems not developed by IBM are. Interested people/companies could then create the missing subsystems or adapt them from Linux/BSD.
The same is true for all companies that claim their software can't be open sourced for legal reasons. Nonsense. If they own it they can open source it. Any dependencies on restrictively licensed subroutine libraries can be re-engineered. It's all just legal FUD to blindside objections and cover up the possibly embarrassing real reasons.
---
Integrated software = marketing buzzword for "we own all the pieces" = we own you.
Re: (Score:3)
False. Remarkably false, in fact. Java's source was available for download for years, but downloading it never meant gaining ownership of it. You could not even redistribute
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
About the only thing in this day and age that I'd like to see would be the Workplace Shell ported to X. It still makes Windows look like its inbred retarded cousin. As for everything else, the operating system is old, and I don't think there's much in it that hasn't already been done elsewhere anyways.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyways the Workplace Shell (WPS) is still ahead of any other operating shell I have used. And it is supposedly IBMs IP. Some years ago there was a rumour that IBM was going to open source the WPS. Shame it didn't happen.
With things like Cairo getting integrated into the WPS it is still quite nice and Cairo allows the eye candy that people nowadays seem to demand.
Current screen shots of the WPS are available here, http://svn.netlabs.org/wps-wizard [netlabs.org] and here http://svn.netlabs.org/wps-wizard/wiki/WpsWizardScreenshots [netlabs.org].
Of course this just shows how it looks, not how it functions.
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:5, Informative)
If you think OS/2 2.0 and later were at all like Win 3.1, you simply weren't paying attention.
Perhaps you're remembering Windows NT 3.1 instead?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Back when the OS/2 deal was made open source had nothing like the profile it does now. It's easy to be a Monda
Re: (Score:3)
Re:IBM vs. Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.osnews.com/story/16543/A_Very_Critical_Look_at_OS_Re-creation_Projects/page3/ [osnews.com]
"Whenever the matter of reviving OS/2 is brought up, I find myself asking - why? It is difficult to see which of the technologies that existed in OS/2 and could be brought back to life within a modern implementation. Many of the features, such as industry-leading DOS support, which gave OS/2 its edge, are simply no longer relevant.
"
"However, the very features which made OS/2 the OS of choice for so many have faded in importance. It is with a heavy heart that many of OS/2 former users (myself included) have to admit that they don't really want to go back to OS/2 anymore than they would trade in their broadband Internet connection for dial-up ANSI BBS access and 320x200 VGA games with ad-lib music. Perhaps IBM could have kept OS/2 relevant but they didn't make any serious efforts to develop it beyond about 1996.
What features, for example, does the kernel offer that modern operating systems do not? For that matter, does anyone really want to use an OS that uses drive letters?
In conclusion, in my opinion, recreating OS/2 would be more work than starting an OS from scratch, considerably more work than improving another OS and ultimately, produce a less useful result than either. "
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes the same thing happened with a mate of mine. He was a great friend, always w
Re:Those bastards! (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy was the death of OS/2 (Score:5, Interesting)
But not in the way the BSA would have you believe, the simple fact was that like you, people like me couldn't get their hands on OS/2 through copyright infringement. For the record I stayed with DOS for far longer and later W95 (wasn't till the early parts of W2K that I learned about unix and later linux) but the simple fact is that MS has had a simple advantage, its software is available to those who for what ever reason don't buy their software in boxes.
I did have my hands on a trial of OS/2 Warp, but I never managed to install it on my PC. Another advantage to W95 which was buggy as hell and often had problem during install BUT did eventually run.
A similar problem is happening right now with Vista, hard to pirate, so I haven't tried it.
So what you ask? Well like many here I am the IT support guy in my social circle and I can't support Vista because I don't know it. How are you going to answer a call asking how to change a setting when you have no idea what is where? I am not going to claim that people I know stay with XP because they can't get support from me otherwise but it is a simple choice, learn windows Vista when you never learned/wanted to learn Windows in the first place, or stay with XP I will be happy to hand you a copy off.
QUESTION: I don't know why OS/2 failed.
ANSWER: Fact is that many people liked it but didn't manage to get a copy.
Piracy has been a critical element in MS rise to fame. With Vista they are taking a gamble, has their lockin become powerfull enough they can now survive without it? Personally I think it has, but you never know. MS might soon face a real nightmare, being beaten NOT by a competitor they can out advertise or EVEN outperform, but beaten by their own product.
Or not, Vista ain't a ME yet and ME never threathened their business model.
Re:Piracy was the death of OS/2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Being young and barely having a notion of what I really wanted, I wanted a copy of OS/2 Warp just to mess with it. I might have been... 11? I couldn't find a copy, even after a trip to St. Louis (not only would I ride in the back seat, but I had to sit in the middle!) What 11 year old wanted to try a new and different operating system? I mean what the hell. Well, nonetheless, it just wasn't available where ever I was able to look, or where ever Mom helped me look.
But I had my Slackware version 1 CDs! So I messed with Linux, barely knowing what I was doing, barely getting anywhere really, but learning. That's an impressionable time! And I didn't spend it learning OS/2 for lack of availability. I specifically remember the random guy at the software store in St. Louis not knowing what-the-fuck when I asked about OS/2. Damn it. It's the city, they're suppose to have that shit.
Oh well! I guess if OS/2 had been worth learning then I could have found a copy and I would have messed with it. But I couldn't, legal or not. Your post reminded me of that.
No, 'twas Windows support that killed the beast... (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows *was* around but it was slow and buggy on the XT/AT class machines that were around. The competition that Mac owners were worried about was OS/2 and Presentation Manager which was arguably superior to the MacOS of the day. Unfortunately, Windows came first and there were apps for it and (almost) none for the new OS/2.
So the brilliant marketing boys at IBM decided to support Windows and Windows apps under OS/2 and market it as a "better Windows than Windows". And it was - about the only stable way to run Windows before 3.1 was to run in under OS/2. So they basically supported MS's buggy product and discouraged migration of apps to their much superior system (why not just develop for Windows if OS/2 can run Windows too?). When MS finally fixed Windows, there was no reason to run it under OS/2, no reason for most of the buyers to continue OS/2 and no reason for developers to do the considerable work of porting their DOS apps to OS/2 rather than Windows 3.1.
That was the analyses that I remember from back then anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In early '93 IBM Germany started a big campaign to get OS/2 to the public. You could get OS/2 2.0
Hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Linux is older than Windows 95.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows NT (Score:5, Informative)
I can also run OS/2 v1.x text mode binaries under 2k even cmd.exe.
NT did start as a rewrite of OS/2 and the first version that booted up was OS/2 NT ver 3.
One thing MS did get in the divorce was rights to use version 3 and up which is why OS/2 4.5 is actually ver 2.45 eg
F:\usr\bin>uname -a
OS/2 amad.localdomain 2 2.45 i386
Re:I find it (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, OS/2 is obscure enough that systems still using it really do get security from that obscurity. The only OS/2 installations still around are likely embedded systems (eg, old ATM's) that are not easily updated. If the source was released, there may be some obvious exploitable flaws. True, those flaws (if they exist) could be found without looking at the source, but the source makes it much easier. For example, instead of having to spend thousands of hours banging away at an ATM or reverse engineering binaries, a cracker could just run a code verification tool over the sources and immediately see any potential buffer overflows.
The security benefit of open source is that it is easier to find and fix security flaws. This is fantastic for incrementally improving and evolving systems. I don't think that helps much for old systems that can't be easily updated.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Xen 3.1 or newer on SVM-capable AMD hardware will also run OS/2 up to this