The VOICE newsletter for OS/2 and eComStation has returned. The January issue can be found here, and it contains articles on NVU, DFSee, a report on WarpStock Europe 2005, and much more. “Finally! Some may have thought that the newsletter had gone the way of all flesh. Indeed, the revision has taken a while and we skipped some issues. This step was neccessary to be able to focus on our work, or it would have taken even longer. At this point, I would like to thank all the persons involved, especially Holger Manthey for many ideas, creating images, and his patience.”
I’m shocked someone is *still* talking about an os that doesn’t have any relevance today and is now officially dead. With all the great oss/free os out there we don’t need this corpse anymore.
Happy new Year to you all!
schwarzy, you *really*, and I do mean *really*, need to go out into the big wide world and see what businesses are using before coming out with utter gibberish.
If you don’t like OS/2 fine. But please don’t comment about something that you have patently no idea about.
An operating system is relevant as long as businesses and individuals chose to use it. Not everything has to be OSS. Maybe when you’ve worked as an IT consultant for as long as I have you may actually have an insight as to what business needs as opposed to what fanboys crave.
Sheesh. And anonymous posting was supposed to protect us from this nonesense.
I’m shocked someone is *still* talking about an os that doesn’t have any relevance today and is now officially dead.
OS/2 proper is officially dead, but eComStation is still very much with us. I tried a version of it recently and I must say that I was very impressed. It certainly didn’t feel dead to me.
With all the great oss/free os out there we don’t need this corpse anymore.
I would argue that because of all the great OSS/Free software out there, OS/2 and eComStation are more viable than ever, thanks to Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice.org among others.
I’m assuming that you meant OS/2 should be replaced with Linux or *BSD. Unfortunately, not very many applications will port cleanly off of OS/2 without some modifications being made. These modifications cost money. Most of the organizations that are still using OS/2 do so because they have their own home grown applications that were written for it years ago.
I’d like to know where to sign up for this – you know, to get paid to troll – two articles on newsletters related ot OS/2 in the last couple of days, and out come the shills.
Like another poster said, lots of great FOSS runs on eCS anyway. Why not run it on eCS *and* Linux or BSD? I do, and I’m sure many others also.
Hey, it’s your loss. 🙂
I use “free” operating systems like Linux and I also use OS/2, and while the two intersect quite a bit, there are still some areas that OS/2 handles quite well which Linux doesn’t handle quite as gracefully (if it does at all).
It’s been interesting to see how many folks are still out there who have some sort of axe to grind about OS/2. If the OS is dead already in your eyes, why are you spending so much time slamming it in forums like these?
If you really believe that OS/2 is dead – then why are you wasting everybodys time – trolling every eCS-OS/2 related thread on OSnews ?
Thanks OS/2 Voice! Although I fear that I myself have never contributed an article, I have been an avid reader for many years, and the advice and insights that you have provided have been invaluable. So may I wish all of you a very successful 2006.
One question – any chance of extending your DrDialog Rexx tutorials to cover:
a) database connections (especially to MySQL)
b) using Rexx as a scripting language for web pages
PS – great new site design. Could you extend the look and feel of the new design to the front page too, to make the site more consistent throughout?
Update: The front page appears to now use the same style as the rest of the site. I guess that my browser cache was still using the old layout.
Looks great!
well you are comletely wrong. Firstly, I have used os2 from 2.0 to warp4, from 1992 to 1995 almost exclusively. But then i realized it was a dead duck. With NT and linux it was obvious os2 was dead in its track. Even 5 years ago its market share was about 0,1%, so i don’t even see the poit in trying to resuscitate it via ecomstation.
The only real alternative of the future is osx on intel.
No, I don’t think that I am wrong on this: I’m basing my observations on real life client situations. When you have millions invested in systems, processes, knowledge bases (including human skills), licences, etc, you can’t just switch that off. For a start, every systems migration carries an inherent data quality risk (this is the kind of thing that I do for a living). The board fo these large OS/2 installations will judge the merits of a switch on the basis of a risk analysis, and I don’t see OS X as being their choice of alternative. Why? Because it’s not IBM. IBM can and does offer better migration paths for OS/2 houses (Linux + Java for example). But even IBM cannot guarantee that “business as usual” will continue if they have to replace front-end, back-office and middleware solutions all running on one platform with another. OS/2 for example interfaces well with mainframe and midrange systems from IBM, thanks to decades of work by IBM engineers.
You appear to be basing your argument of what businesses should do on what is the latest whiz-bang technology. Apple is not geared up to support (eg) FTSE 250 companies. IBM is. Sun is. MS is. Novell is. Red Hat is (I think?)
Look, I love OS X. It’s my own system of choice at home (along with eCS and WinXP on my PC). However, it is simply not suited for the enterprise, which is where OS/2 continues to have a presence.
There is no corpse. There is certainly a leaner userbase. OS/2 *will* eventually die, yes indeed. But not for a few years yet. And whilst there is a demand for real life needs, rather than geek-chic, it remains a viable platform and MUST be maintanined and improved.
This is true of *ALL* operating systems, not just OS/2.
The only argument of Windows lemmings: “OS/2 is dead”. Of course, this is weak position.
So, if it’s not dead, please let me know the current market share: 0.00001, perhaps? Bwahahah, this os/2 thing make me laugh, really.
No one knows the current market share except probably IBM and Serenity, and they are not saying.
A year or so ago (I forget exactly when), Sun estimated that there were some 1 million OS/2 business seats.
I have no idea how even half of that today would translate in terms of global market share. Doubtless you can tell me.