Nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on IBM to publish the source code of OS/2.
IBM announced last week that it will discontinue OS/2 products by the end of this year and will withdraw standard support for OS/2-related products at the end of 2006.
Since this announcement, a petition on community site OS/2 World calling for IBM to make the source code of the operating system publicly available has been gathering e-signatures. The site plans to send the petition to IBM soon, according to a recent posting on the site.
The site claims that making OS/2 open source will benefit IBM customers that want to keep the operating system, or want to migrate to another operating systems. IBM was unable to comment on whether it would consider making OS/2 open source in time for this article.
There are various reasons why IBM may be reluctant to open source OS/2, including the potential risk of exposing another company's intellectual property and the cost of cleaning the code. Also, IBM is already heavily involved in Linux, so would prefer customers to migrate.
OS/2 World staff claimed that IBM could avoid intellectual property issues by only releasing parts of the source code: "We know that IBM faces a problem of making OS/2 open source because of the private sources from third party companies. What we ask of IBM is to release as much of the source as possible and list the OS/2 components that need an open source replacement. With a list of components that need to be replaced companies interested on OS/2 or individual developers can create open source software to fill this "holes" in the OS."
Talkback
Lets give it a try everybody sign the petition
http://tinyurl.com/86ztv
Ibm should open sourced it's OS/2 and if possible it's Lotus Office Suite as well. Since both are heading towards it "End of Life" stages, it won't affect IBM at all but yes for the public.
Well, if IBM is afraid of possible future IP infringement claims then why not keeping it closed source and handing over the source code (licensing) to another company ? (maybe Serenity Systems ?)
This company could prevent IP infringement claims by paying royalties to IBM.
IBM has never been interested in SMB and home users.
This company could then target these markets, generate more revenue and hire the required developers to improve OS/2.
Stupid, stupid people. They've known at least since 1999 (I know, I was part of the movement for 10 years) there is just too much Microsoft code to extricate. If they did take out all of the Microsoft code (which IBM will NEVER DO) it would take years to patch together the pieces to have a working system. (and believe me it wouldn't be the same system)
It's important for people to learn to get-over, let-go, move beyond what can never be. People that are unwilling to move forward with their lives end up with a "Pet Cemetery Scenario" for those that have seen the movie. Which would be what OS/2 would look like if it was re-assembled after all the Microsoft code was replaced.
Be bold and move on with your lives.