In article <6s2dnYRF-OIS7cXfRVn-sQ@pcisys.net>, ha@nospam.net says...
> David H. McCoy wrote:
> > In article , rsteiner@visi.com says...
> >
> >>Here in comp.os.os2.misc,
> >>"Herbert Rosenau" spake unto us, saying:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Without ongoing developement a system will die.
> >>
> >>While I agree that continued development is a good thing in general, it
> >>isn't strictly necessary. As long as a given platform is able to meet
> >>the needs of its users, it will continue to be viable (with or without
> >>actual growth) to some of its existing users.
> >>
> >>
> >>>OS/2 WARP4 is out of developement since about a full decade now.
> >>>Anything IBM has done in the last decade was only maintenance.
> >>
> >>One could argue that the adding of USB support, LVM, JFS, and a number
> >>of other things to OS/2 went well beyond traditional maintenance. :-)
> >>
> >>
> >
> > As long as the needs of those existing users don't change. When you sit
> > down and work out how many customers have such static needs coupled with
> > the lack of development, it is relatively easy to see why the OS/2 user
> > base has fallen to such a degree.
>
> It's the apps stupid!!! ;-). I can run a Commodore 64 today, or an
> Amiga, or an Atari ST or (add platform here) but the consumer drives the
> mass market and it ain't in those platforms. I could go off on a
> diatribe about competition being perfect only when a fully informed
> consumer exists (if you think the majority of consumers are fully
> informed about their options you're nuts) and therefore the computer
> operating system market is not in perfect competition, but I won't. No
> major software houses develop for OS/2 and OS/2 software isn't sold at
> major retailers. OS/2 is in maintance mode now with features requested
> by current customers with enough clout being added. It's pretty simple,
> if somebody wants to use OS/2 they are free to. If they want to be
> delusional and believe that IBM is going to push it and start trying to
> get developers writing for it let them be delusional. For the longest
> time I hoped that something would happen in the OS/2 landscape that
> would make it viable again but that's not the way the market works.
> What are you rallying against David? This group used to be good for a
> yuck and occasionaly intersting information about OS/2 but not so much
> anymore.
>
Well, I wouldn't say I'm rallying. I'm just saying that as needs change,
the OS, in this case, the API needs to change, then the apps will
follow. For example, the addition of RDP, IMO, was invaluble. VNC,
which I have to use sometimes is extremely slow. However, across the
VPN, RDP is very fast and has saved me many hours.

Or in XP, MS(finally) took care of something that bugged me for years.
The NT line could not easily allow for the backup of open files. XP
added some kernal enhancements and APIs in the form of the shadow volume
that fixed that problem. The direct result of this is a sweet backup
program called CasperXP which can do full backups even to USB2 based
drives.

But I do agree with you. This group isn't nearly as interesting. There
was a time when you could get into a good technical discussion. But
now...
--
--------------------------------------
David H. McCoy


--------------------------------------

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 17:19:05 UTC, letoured@nospam.net wrote:

>
> Hubert, an rexx_dll is not for OS2 only.

Have you tried to run on Windows or Linux? So, when it is not for OS/2
only why would it not work there?

It is always the fudster letoured who names himself asshole and is
unable to prove a singe word of the craps he writes, proving himself
as fudster.

eCS is more than OS/2.

--
Tschau/Bye
Herbert

Visit http://www.ecomstation.de the home of german eComStation
eComStation 1.2 Deutsch ist da!

Here in comp.os.os2.misc, David H. McCoy
spake unto us, saying:

>In article , rsteiner@visi.com says...
>
>> While I agree that continued development is a good thing in general, it
>> isn't strictly necessary. As long as a given platform is able to meet
>> the needs of its users, it will continue to be viable (with or without
>> actual growth) to some of its existing users.
>
>As long as the needs of those existing users don't change. When you sit
>down and work out how many customers have such static needs coupled with
>the lack of development, it is relatively easy to see why the OS/2 user
>base has fallen to such a degree.

Oh, I agree with you, and I think they'd be right to move to a platform
which works better for them.

Compared to either Windows or Linux, for example, OS/2 is quite static
in some ways, and software development for it hs been low-key (mainly
continuations of existing products/projects or ports of things from the
Linux world).

On the other hand, speaking as someone who has been an OS/2 hobbyist
for well over a decade, I think the perceived situation is somewhat
worse than the actual situation, at least if you take things like eCS
into account.

People outside the OS/2 community are largely unaware that anything at
all is happening, and the press doesn't dissuade them of that frame of
mind (Linux is the appointed alternative these days, not OS/2), but a
user who is knowledgable about the existing projects and who is willing
to utilize a mix of native and non-native software under OS/2 is still
able to solve a surprisingly large number of tasks.

--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Smyrna, GA USA
OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

Here in comp.os.os2.misc, Jason Bowen
spake unto us, saying:

>It's the apps stupid!!! ;-).

Precisely. And thanks to VDMs, WinOS2, Odin, Executor, and various
ports of POSIX software, OS/2 is still able to run a large number of
useful programs.

It's usually fun to figure out how to do something under OS/2. :-)

--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Smyrna, GA USA
OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

Here in comp.os.os2.misc, David H. McCoy
spake unto us, saying:

>But I do agree with you. This group isn't nearly as interesting. There
>was a time when you could get into a good technical discussion. But
>now...

Microsoft made the operating system market boring by killing off their
commercial competition.

It's hard for any commercial entity to continue to compete in the OS
marketplace when people won't develop for your OS simply because you
aren't #1. In many cases, features don't enter into it -- it finally
came down to pure market share, and Microsoft is so entrenched now on
both corporate and home desktops because of the popularity of software
that uses its desktop APIs that nothing else has a chance of gaining
more than a few percentage points in the desktop market.

Linux and FreeBSD managed to survived because the motivations of their
creators were not (and are not) driven by a need for continued profit,
and they are able to operate under the marketplace radar to a large
extent. That causes Microsoft some worry, I'm sure -- they certainly
seem to be focusing a lot of attention on Linux at present.

Sorry that technical discussions aren't as interesting any more, but
it's not about technology anymore on the software side anymore unless
you want to talk about Linux or *BSD versus Windows.

As you say, OS/2 is an ineffective competitor these days, at least in
the eyes of most people.

--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Smyrna, GA USA
OS/2 + eCS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
WARNING: I've seen FIELDATA FORTRAN V and I know how to use it!
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.

David,

> the API needs to change, then the apps will
> follow.

since 90% of all OS/2 apps are currently unsupported,
they will not follow.

Some examples:

PMFax
Impos/2
MG Designer
MG Draw
LogoArt
Embellish
TrueSpectra>Photgraphics
StarOffice
Papyrus (more or less unsupported)
Describe
Mesa2 (more or less unsupported)
Smack!
SmartSuite (more or less unsupported)
DCITU
Recognita
... (to be continued)

I'm talking not about some little tools and utilities.
I'm talking about productive office apps for end-users
(I think eCs is a desktop system).

Then most of the delevelopment kits are unsupported,
e.g. nearly all Visual Rexx tools.

So it is importent to keep the old API running,
also after adding new APIs. The expample of GRADD
problems (see my reply to Herbert above) shows,
that this is very difficult. You will not see the problems
at the first view. Apps like ImpOS/2 will start fine, but
you can't work with it.
Of course the old apps will not be broken with a new
Rexx dll mentioned at the first message in this thread.
But I'm sure deeper changes will impact them.

regards
--
Frank Wochatz

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 17:27:52 UTC, "Frank Wochatz"
wrote:

> Hi Herbert,
>
> I think you have a very theoretical point of view.
>
> In practice, eCs has to loose if it will be incompatible
> to OS/2.

True so far. But a new set of APIs doesn't make eCS incomatible. Or
does you claim that OS/2 WARP 4.5x is incompatible to OS/2? It
contains lots of APIs directed to the kernel, not only to REXX.

> The reason is that the application development
> is nearly at level zero. Ok, there are some free- and
> shareware developers, and one or two commercial
> companies, and three odinized windows apps
> which are working or even not ( I don't count the last
> one for productive environments).

Really? You are sure? You would not tell that shareware is nothin? By
that, linux owns less payware developers than OS/2.

> The trouble starts with GRADD under OS/2.
> Ok, it is nice to have GRADD-based SNAP for a wide
> range of graphic boards, but with GRADD a lot of
> applications are not longer usable under OS/2 and
> eCs.

Really? Which ones? All the DOS applications I own are compatible. All
OS/2 commandline applications I use since 1988 are compatible, all PM
applications I use since OS/2 2.0 and most of them since 1988 are
compatible too. None of the WPS extensions I've tried since OS/2 2.0
beta are compatible.

I'd loosed some apps on compatibility issuses with WARP4 FP5 but only
on misuse of PM APIs. And IBM repaired most of that with the fix to
FP5 they released.

>
> Actually for some of them there is no equivalent
> available. With GRADD we have lost some great
> and full featured programs like Impos/2 and Microgrfx
> Designer.

Hu? IMPOS/2 works on my eCS like a charm. It was working on OS/2 WARP4
FP15 too.

> And GRADD is only ONE example.

Yeah, JFS with its possibility to use files up to 2 TB in sise is
really incompatible because you can't copy so big files to HPFS and
you'll even not able to copy them through the peer network.
>
> In latest eCs 1.2 I have to deactivate some things
> to run my DCITU software. Fortunately, after days of
> searching I've found the system component to deactivate
> with some great help here at the news groups.
> There is no alternative for DCITU.

Go to the developer of DICTU and complain because he has made lots of
errors in his application while ignoring the programming guides known
since OS/2 1.1.

>
> Now I'm waiting for a new eCs version, where apps like
> Mesa2 or my own apps will not longer run.
> Then I will freeze the previous version and move
> to a completely other plattform later.

Why should there one?

Look on, IBM had released about 1000 new APIs to WPS from OS/2 2.0 to
4.5x, making things incompatible. But any WPS extension developed for
WPS 1.0 (OS/2 2.0) works well with WPS 2.0 (WARP4). IBM has released
some 100 new APIs to the kernel over time - and lots of developers
used them since then. True, none of the new apps using them will be
able to run on an older version.

> The second point is that there are free and OS/2 - eCs
> compatible alternatives for above described Rexx API.
> It is not a brand new killer feature, there is absolutely no
> reason to use such things. Of course it makes it simpler, but
> it would be very easy to make such a dll available for
> OS/2 users, too. The eCs distributors takes enogh
> advantage of free and open source work, so I think this
> should not be problem.

eCS will release in future more new APIs, like IBM has done in past
for OS/2. That will bring the same problems of backward compatibility
as OS/2 had in the past.

eCS will be backward compatible like OS/2 2.x is to 1.x or from 2.0 to
4.5x. Sure forward compatibility is something else. True you would
unable to use some new applications on older systems - but that is the
same as IBM has proven with API change and extension since OS/2 1.0.

Time goes on and with that there is and will be a need to use newer
APIs to get newer functionality working.

eCS is not created to destroy compatibility to old applications but to
made ready for future use who need more and newer functionality.

--
Tschau/Bye
Herbert

Visit http://www.ecomstation.de the home of german eComStation
eComStation 1.2 Deutsch ist da!

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 20:28:48 UTC, rsteiner@visi.com (Richard Steiner)
wrote:

> Here in comp.os.os2.misc,
> "Herbert Rosenau" spake unto us, saying:
>
> >Without ongoing developement a system will die.
>
> While I agree that continued development is a good thing in general, it
> isn't strictly necessary. As long as a given platform is able to meet
> the needs of its users, it will continue to be viable (with or without
> actual growth) to some of its existing users.
>
> >OS/2 WARP4 is out of developement since about a full decade now.
> >Anything IBM has done in the last decade was only maintenance.
>
> One could argue that the adding of USB support, LVM, JFS, and a number
> of other things to OS/2 went well beyond traditional maintenance. :-)
>
Developement IS strictly necessary because the need of users changes.

True, IBM has given new functionality in fixpacks over years. But at
least changing a versions number is hard because too many developers
are too dumb to make a version test right. OS/2 V2.45 (internal
version number) is 4.52 in marketing speak. It would be really 9.7.3
when not so many developers are too crazy to make things right. The
last time this problem was coming up was with the change from OS/2 2.x
to 3.x. In Beta it was even internal OS/2 3.0 - and changed back to
2.3 because too many applications failed to run on OS/2 Version 3.0 -
but running well on 2.3. So OS/2 4.0 was internally renumberd to 2.4.

IBM learned from that and has sacrificed to increas even subversion
numbers with ongoing developement.


--
Tschau/Bye
Herbert

Visit http://www.ecomstation.de the home of german eComStation
eComStation 1.2 Deutsch ist da!

Captain's log. On StarDate Sun, 10 Apr 2005 07:36:25 +0000 (UTC) received comm
from "Herbert Rosenau" on channel comp.os.os2.misc:

: eCS will release in future more new APIs, like IBM has done in past

I think this is a major shift in strategic direction (I won't judge if it's
mostly good or bad) compared to the past.

martin törnsten

--
martinot@gmail.com

Captain's log. On StarDate Sun, 10 Apr 2005 02:18:26 -0400 received comm from
rsteiner@visi.com (Richard Steiner) on channel comp.os.os2.misc:

: It's hard for any commercial entity to continue to compete in the OS
: marketplace when people won't develop for your OS simply because you
: aren't #1. In many cases, features don't enter into it -- it finally
: came down to pure market share, and Microsoft is so entrenched now on
: both corporate and home desktops because of the popularity of software
: that uses its desktop APIs that nothing else has a chance of gaining
: more than a few percentage points in the desktop market.

It's not impossible, but I agree it would be very difficult.

Microsoft is entrenched, but has also executed their strategies (to continue to
dominate the market) extremely well.

: Linux and FreeBSD managed to survived because the motivations of their
: creators were not (and are not) driven by a need for continued profit,
: and they are able to operate under the marketplace radar to a large
: extent. That causes Microsoft some worry, I'm sure -- they certainly
: seem to be focusing a lot of attention on Linux at present.

I think Linux and OSS will continue to be an even bigger problem for Microsoft
(and many other commercial vendors), but not impossible if they can show they
deliver more value for their customers. It will be a hard, more even and
interesting battle!

: Sorry that technical discussions aren't as interesting any more, but
: it's not about technology anymore on the software side anymore unless
: you want to talk about Linux or *BSD versus Windows.
:
: As you say, OS/2 is an ineffective competitor these days, at least in
: the eyes of most people.

Very well pointed out post in general. That said I think OS X poses some
competition for Microsoft (it could be argued if it's 100% commercial as it's
based on the FreeBSD kernel, but as the rest is property closed code I would say
it's to be considered as a commercial OS). The problem with OS X is that it
requires you to change your hardware to, I agree nice (even is somewhat under
performing), but more expensive ones, and be locked to buy it only from Apple
(one vendor). If OS X was available on Intel machines it would probably be
different for me.

martin törnsten

--
martinot@gmail.com

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 09:54:04 UTC, Martin T÷rnsten
wrote:

> Captain's log. On StarDate Sun, 10 Apr 2005 07:36:25 +0000 (UTC) received comm
> from "Herbert Rosenau" on channel comp.os.os2.misc:
>
> : eCS will release in future more new APIs, like IBM has done in past
>
> I think this is a major shift in strategic direction (I won't judge if it's
> mostly good or bad) compared to the past.

That'äs right. IBM had chasnged its strategy for OS/2 from developing
it to maintenance it to unsupported on public/maintenance to closed
user groups by releasing customer specific versions, hidden to anyone
else.

Serenity systems has changed its strategy still long before eCS 1.0
was released from closed groups to public but not from maintenance
only. Sinnce it maide its first OEM contract with IBM it had planned
not only to maintenance but develope. So the OS/2 strategy of IBM and
Serenity Systems differs from day one on.

--
Tschau/Bye
Herbert

Visit http://www.ecomstation.de the home of german eComStation
eComStation 1.2 Deutsch ist da!

hubert you asshole --> an rexx_dll is not for OS2 only. Get back on your meds. You lost this one as you lost every whining claim you make here.

PS: State looking for a real job. ecs booby is out of business.






In , on 04/10/2005
at 06:59 AM, "Herbert Rosenau" said:

>On Sat, 9 Apr 2005 17:19:05 UTC, letoured@nospam.net wrote:

>>
>> Hubert, an rexx_dll is not for OS2 only.

>Have you tried to run on Windows or Linux? So, when it is not for OS/2
>only why would it not work there?
>
>It is always the fudster letoured who names himself asshole and is
>unable to prove a singe word of the craps he writes, proving himself as
>fudster.

>eCS is more than OS/2.

Frank I'm just about ready to put Designer 4.1 on Limewire so you will stop whining about it not working. Will that make you happy?






In , on 04/10/2005
at 07:35 AM, "Frank Wochatz" said:

>David,

>> the API needs to change, then the apps will
>> follow.

>since 90% of all OS/2 apps are currently unsupported,
>they will not follow.

>Some examples:

>PMFax
>Impos/2
>MG Designer
>MG Draw
>LogoArt
>Embellish
>TrueSpectra>Photgraphics
>StarOffice
>Papyrus (more or less unsupported)
>Describe
>Mesa2 (more or less unsupported)
>Smack!
>SmartSuite (more or less unsupported)
>DCITU
>Recognita
>... (to be continued)

>I'm talking not about some little tools and utilities.
>I'm talking about productive office apps for end-users
>(I think eCs is a desktop system).

>Then most of the delevelopment kits are unsupported,
>e.g. nearly all Visual Rexx tools.

>So it is importent to keep the old API running,
>also after adding new APIs. The expample of GRADD
>problems (see my reply to Herbert above) shows,
>that this is very difficult. You will not see the problems
>at the first view. Apps like ImpOS/2 will start fine, but
>you can't work with it.
>Of course the old apps will not be broken with a new
>Rexx dll mentioned at the first message in this thread.
>But I'm sure deeper changes will impact them.

>regards

In , on 04/10/2005
at 11:54 AM, Martin T÷rnsten said:

>Captain's log. On StarDate Sun, 10 Apr 2005 07:36:25 +0000 (UTC) received
>comm from "Herbert Rosenau" on channel
>comp.os.os2.misc:

>: eCS will release in future more new APIs, like IBM has done in past

ecs didn't release a new DLL. -->now stop the wishing. YThis so-called new DLL was written for an OS2 application, and the name changed so it would run under the hacking in ecs.

Anyowe with half a brain can find the OS2 dll on the internet.


>I think this is a major shift in strategic direction (I won't judge if
>it's mostly good or bad) compared to the past.

The major shift is ecs going out of business. It already costs more the OS2 from IBM -- and you get less with ecs.



>martin törnsten

Herbert,

> > I think you have a very theoretical point of view.
> >
> > In practice, eCs has to loose if it will be incompatible
> > to OS/2.
>
> True so far. But a new set of APIs doesn't make eCS incomatible. Or
> does you claim that OS/2 WARP 4.5x is incompatible to OS/2? It
> contains lots of APIs directed to the kernel, not only to REXX.
>
> > The reason is that the application development
> > is nearly at level zero. Ok, there are some free- and
> > shareware developers, and one or two commercial
> > companies, and three odinized windows apps
> > which are working or even not ( I don't count the last
> > one for productive environments).
>
> Really? You are sure? You would not tell that shareware is nothin? By
> that, linux owns less payware developers than OS/2.

You do misunderstand me.
I did mean the last ones from my list: odinized windows apps.
I have nothing nothing against share-, freeware or open source.

> > The trouble starts with GRADD under OS/2.
> > Ok, it is nice to have GRADD-based SNAP for a wide
> > range of graphic boards, but with GRADD a lot of
> > applications are not longer usable under OS/2 and
> > eCs.
>
> Really? Which ones? All the DOS applications I own are compatible. All
> OS/2 commandline applications I use since 1988 are compatible, all PM
> applications I use since OS/2 2.0 and most of them since 1988 are
> compatible too. None of the WPS extensions I've tried since OS/2 2.0
> beta are compatible.

e.g. Impos, Designer, Toyland. Take a look at the thread

http://www.commtalk.de/cgi-bin/wwwth...l?Cat=1,3,16&B
oard=os2apps&Number=25627&page=&view=&sb=&vc=1#Post25627

Read the whole thread, you will find some more examples.


> I'd loosed some apps on compatibility issuses with WARP4 FP5 but only
> on misuse of PM APIs. And IBM repaired most of that with the fix to
> FP5 they released.
>
> >
> > Actually for some of them there is no equivalent
> > available. With GRADD we have lost some great
> > and full featured programs like Impos/2 and Microgrfx
> > Designer.
>
> Hu? IMPOS/2 works on my eCS like a charm. It was working on OS/2 WARP4
> FP15 too.

Then you do not use a GRADD based video driver, or you did never
use a palette (open a plalette and tell me what you see).


> > And GRADD is only ONE example.
>
> Yeah, JFS with its possibility to use files up to 2 TB in sise is
> really incompatible because you can't copy so big files to HPFS and
> you'll even not able to copy them through the peer network.

The 2 GB limit in older OS/2 versions is very theoretical limit.
Unless you are using video manipulation, you will not need such large
files.
Maybe one have some ZIP files > 2GB, ok. But with some little
effort everybody is able to work around.

But you are right: latest OS/2 and eCs version are incompatible to
itself.
Some system components are 64-bit anabled, some are not.
But lets talk about practice, not about academical hair splittings.

> > In latest eCs 1.2 I have to deactivate some things
> > to run my DCITU software. Fortunately, after days of
> > searching I've found the system component to deactivate
> > with some great help here at the news groups.
> > There is no alternative for DCITU.
>
> Go to the developer of DICTU and complain because he has made lots of
> errors in his application while ignoring the programming guides known
> since OS/2 1.1.

THATS exactly the point.
DCITU is unsupported like a lot of other apps.

But anyway, your are completely wrong:
DCITU did work perfectly under OS2 and eCs 1.03 (maybe i n
1.1, too. I don't know). The problem occurs with eCs 1.2,
and the trouble comes from xwpdaemn.exe.


[...]

> eCS will release in future more new APIs, like IBM has done in past
> for OS/2. That will bring the same problems of backward compatibility
> as OS/2 had in the past.
>
> eCS will be backward compatible like OS/2 2.x is to 1.x or from 2.0 to
> 4.5x. Sure forward compatibility is something else. True you would
> unable to use some new applications on older systems - but that is the
> same as IBM has proven with API change and extension since OS/2 1.0.
>
> Time goes on and with that there is and will be a need to use newer
> APIs to get newer functionality working.
>
> eCS is not created to destroy compatibility to old applications but to
> made ready for future use who need more and newer functionality.

I hope so.


regards
--
Frank Wochatz

In article , rsteiner@visi.com says...
> Here in comp.os.os2.misc, David H. McCoy
> spake unto us, saying:
>
> >In article , rsteiner@visi.com says...
> >
> >> While I agree that continued development is a good thing in general, it
> >> isn't strictly necessary. As long as a given platform is able to meet
> >> the needs of its users, it will continue to be viable (with or without
> >> actual growth) to some of its existing users.
> >
> >As long as the needs of those existing users don't change. When you sit
> >down and work out how many customers have such static needs coupled with
> >the lack of development, it is relatively easy to see why the OS/2 user
> >base has fallen to such a degree.
>
> Oh, I agree with you, and I think they'd be right to move to a platform
> which works better for them.
>
> Compared to either Windows or Linux, for example, OS/2 is quite static
> in some ways, and software development for it hs been low-key (mainly
> continuations of existing products/projects or ports of things from the
> Linux world).

Richard, when IBM, the owner of OS/2 fails to make the flagship versions
of their software available, this is more than low-key. IBM makes their
own clean room implementations of Java for both Windows, Aix, and Linux.

But not OS/2.

They are make DB2 equally available.

But not for OS/2.

Both of these pieces of software used to be available. This isn't a
continuation. And this is just IBM. What about Oracle? Or Powerquest?


> On the other hand, speaking as someone who has been an OS/2 hobbyist
> for well over a decade, I think the perceived situation is somewhat
> worse than the actual situation, at least if you take things like eCS
> into account.

Well, as both a hobbyist and professional, I would say that the
situation is just as bleak I discribed. Your needs might be met, but a
variety that I've mentioned in the past are not.

Even Linux can do all these things.

> People outside the OS/2 community are largely unaware that anything at
> all is happening, and the press doesn't dissuade them of that frame of
> mind (Linux is the appointed alternative these days, not OS/2), but a
> user who is knowledgable about the existing projects and who is willing
> to utilize a mix of native and non-native software under OS/2 is still
> able to solve a surprisingly large number of tasks.
>

And their are far, far more that OS/2 cannot do and this is why the
press doesn't bother bring up OS/2. When a person wants Oracle, for
example, that is what they want.

--
--------------------------------------
David H. McCoy


--------------------------------------

In article , rsteiner@visi.com says...
> Here in comp.os.os2.misc, David H. McCoy
> spake unto us, saying:
>
> >But I do agree with you. This group isn't nearly as interesting. There
> >was a time when you could get into a good technical discussion. But
> >now...
>
> Microsoft made the operating system market boring by killing off their
> commercial competition.

Operating systems are boring. The job of the OS is the make running
applications easy. And to be frank, MS didn't kill of OS/2, IBM did.

IBM had their own x86 CPU(Blue Lighting), Office suite, PC company, and
development tools, and STILL didn't see the thing. And remember those
commercials. Most of the guys here make the most noise weren't even
using OS/2 when the "Get Warped" commericals were released.

And what about the foolish attempt to port to the PowerPC?

IBM killed OS/2 by making missteps at practically every junction.

> It's hard for any commercial entity to continue to compete in the OS
> marketplace when people won't develop for your OS simply because you
> aren't #1. In many cases, features don't enter into it -- it finally
> came down to pure market share, and Microsoft is so entrenched now on
> both corporate and home desktops because of the popularity of software
> that uses its desktop APIs that nothing else has a chance of gaining
> more than a few percentage points in the desktop market.
>
> Linux and FreeBSD managed to survived because the motivations of their
> creators were not (and are not) driven by a need for continued profit,
> and they are able to operate under the marketplace radar to a large
> extent. That causes Microsoft some worry, I'm sure -- they certainly
> seem to be focusing a lot of attention on Linux at present.

Linux is thriving because profit minded companies have taken the reigns.
If it wasn't for RedHat and IBM, Linux would be where the BeOS is today.

IBM made Linux safe.

> Sorry that technical discussions aren't as interesting any more, but
> it's not about technology anymore on the software side anymore unless
> you want to talk about Linux or *BSD versus Windows.

There's plenty to talk about technically. The problem is that the people
here are not as technically able.





--
--------------------------------------
David H. McCoy


--------------------------------------

In article ,
frankwochatz@despammed.com says...
> > > And GRADD is only ONE example.
> >
> > Yeah, JFS with its possibility to use files up to 2 TB in sise is
> > really incompatible because you can't copy so big files to HPFS and
> > you'll even not able to copy them through the peer network.
>
> The 2 GB limit in older OS/2 versions is very theoretical limit.
> Unless you are using video manipulation, you will not need such large
> files.
>
True, but not theoretical. PVRs need at least 3gig/hour. That is a very
real concern for an increasing number of people. And let's face, only
someone hardcore enough to put together an HTPC would still use OS/2.
--
--------------------------------------
David H. McCoy


--------------------------------------

In article ,
David H. McCoy wrote:
>
> IBM killed OS/2 by making missteps at practically every junction.

Yup. I remember when I went to Egghead to buy Warp. It was on a back
row shelf, hard to find. Windows was prominently displayed. Placement
in retail stores is for sale. Microsoft was willing to buy good
position. IBM wasn't.

Or consider developers. Jerry Pournelle described his experiences in
his Byte column, and they perfectly illustrate IBMs problem. At some
major trade show (Comdex?), Pournelle went to the IBM booth, and asked
them what he needed to do to start developing for OS/2. They gave him
an application to the developer program. If he filled that out, with
all its prying questions about what products he was going to develop,
then they would consider letting him pay them a bunch of money for the
privilege of writing OS/2 programs.

At the Microsoft booth, he pointed at whatever the newest thing they
were pushing was, and asked how to develop for it. They handed him the
SDK.

Later, when Win95 was out, I was at Egghead, and noticed that you could
pick up there *everything* you needed to start Windows programming--both
all the tools *and* documentation (the MSDN Library). With OS/2, the
best you could do was get the Watcom compiler. That was when I realized
OS/2 really was done.

--
--Tim Smith