Should IBM's OS/2 Be Open-Sourced?

by Volker Weber

Esther writes:

A group of die-hard OS/2 users are petitioning IBM—again—to release the operating system's source code as open-source. The question may not be whether IBM wants to do so... but if it can. Not, I expect, that IBM will actually say this out loud.

I largely agree with Esther. This petition also reminds me of a discussion we had recently. 11,613 signatures and no reaction from IBM. That is the size of Lotusphere.

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Comments

Didn't IBM Sell OS/2 support and maintenance to some other company?

OS/2 does contain much code that is licensed from Microsoft, I doubt IBM can open source it.

Carl Tyler, 2007-12-08

A very interesting thought. All of my experiences with OS/2 were very good.

But I have to admit that Carl is probably right. Dare to dream. *sigh*

Gregg Eldred, 2007-12-09

Esther's text is really worth reading, guys. :-)

Volker Weber, 2007-12-09

Yes, they should open source it. That said, there is so little chance of OS/2 gaining even 1% of the desktop market that you have to ask why bother? The magnificent BEOS went that route and has gotten nowhere. I was a big supporter of OS/2 and then BEOS and desktop Linux. Their opportunity has largely passed because OS/X has delivered an excellent Windows alternative.
Would donating OS/2 to the open source world help Linux (hence, hurt Windows)? I think that this would be the real value to IBM if they could do it without the SCO style lawsuits.

Ed Maloney, 2007-12-09

@Volker - Ok, I read Esther's article. I devoted 2 full years (plus a little bit) of my life to a product based on OS/2: 123/G (Lotus' first GUI spreadsheet, released in March of 1990).

I had mixed feelings about OS/2 -- solid technical foundation, but the developer tools sucked (when there were any).

Anyhow, OS/2 was a joint project between IBM and Microsoft, so I doubt IBM owns all the IP.

Bob Balaban, 2007-12-09


As others have said, the likelihood of this happening seems vanishingly small. It takes very little effort to petition for something, and frankly I think its irresponsible to sign petitions for things that you know are not realistic.

What would come of an open sourceed OS/2? Probably not much directly, but its possible that there are some things to be learned from studying it.

I do find it hard to understand why anyone starting to work on a new OS derivation wouldn't at least start with a linux base, given how its proven itself time and again.

Andrew Pollack, 2007-12-09

Opensourcing OS/2 would hardly lead to a new OS becoming relevant. But Esther's article nicely pointed out, that parts of it helped Linux (JFS) and that especially the Workplace Shell sources could be a source of insight for the Gnome/KDE teams.

I don't buy the part that the sources have been lost. cCommStation is still available and they can create new builds even today.

I'm curious: What is the success level of petitions in the IT domain? How to large companies handle them compared to smaller ones? How relevant is the size or popularity?

Remains the question: what parts of OS/2 can be opened?

:-) stw

Stephan H. Wissel, 2007-12-09

This is ridiculous. Excuse me guys, why would you open the source of an overaged operating system? Because you cannot make money out of it anymore? As the final stage in its lifecycle? As a reboost? This is bad marketing.

Open Source software is something very different.

Cem Basman, 2007-12-09

Stephan, thank you for reading Esther's text. :-)

Cem, the O/S is no longer sold by IBM. There would be no marketing. The reason to open source any software is to get access to the blueprints. An operating system consists of many parts and quite a few of them are valuable.

As I said, I agree with many things Esther has written. One of them being that IBM is unable to release the full source code, and probably even unable to determine which parts it could release.

Volker Weber, 2007-12-09

...which is the same issue for the occasional peep that I hear about open-sourcing SmartSuite (not clear how to determine which parts could be released).

As for Esther's article, she says in the discussion/comments:I think that a lot of OS/2 users don't get this, Gilbert. IBM has tried many times to sell to "users" rather than to corporations, but it's never figured out the knack of it. Every time they try—OS/2, speech recognition software, multimedia and ISDN cards—they stumble. They stumble even more spectacularly when they get fans. They don't know how to deal with fans.I would argue that Lotusphere, the blogging community, user groups demonstrates that IBM -does- know how to deal with fans, in certain segments. Has Lotus been able to cross-pollinate that kind of energy and understanding to other brands? Not so much. Ambuj created his own conference for the DB2 information management brand, WebSphere just ran a SOA conference, Rational has done the same since before they were a part of IBM. But I never quite see/hear the same energy around these events ... perhaps it is a "yet". Of course, all of this is just software, no idea about the rest of IBM.

Ed Brill, 2007-12-09

Ed, Notes' fans are still corporate users — a community that IBM does know how to serve. These are people whose "oh cool!" can be influenced by terms like "easier deployment" and "apply corporate policies," the advantages that IBM truly does know well how to create. I think that may be the distinction.

In comparison, IBM was appalled when Brad Wardell created a computer game for OS/2; they hardly knew how to talk to him. (Not to mention that Brad, who was something like 21 when he started Stardock, was beyond their comprehension.) And more to the point, they were terrified by Team OS/2: end users spending their weekends at CompUSA demonstrating OS/2, and inviting strangers to OS/2 user group meetings. Amazing write-ins to magazines like PC Magazine and ComputerWorld.

The tech people in IBM loved it (their work was appreciated!), but when layoff time came... all three of the IBM Team OS/2 people were invited to find positions elsewhere in the company. I had breakfast with Wally Casey at Comdex, begging him to keep those people on — but no, budgets are budgets. Uh-huh.

A response to the Digg post suggested that IBM should open source ViaVoice. I've no idea what would be involved there (I wrote my speech recognition book shortly after it occurred to someone that IPDS was not a sexy enough name) but in that case I think IBM does own the IP. Fun concept, that.

Esther Schindler, 2007-12-09

I made this proposal some years ago in the internal proposal program and got a negative answer from the US although the idea was appreciated. According to the answer all code that IBM can make Open Source IBM made Open Source already. For the remaining code IBM does not have all the necessary rights (or at least not alone).

Martin Hiegl, 2007-12-09

I thought I blogged about it then ... but I cannot find my post ...

Martin Hiegl, 2007-12-09

@ED - Lotus Notes is not only the exception, it is the exception that succeeds at having fans almost in spite of what IBM does. You Ed, are a prime example of IBM not knowing what to do with popular things.

You represent the Domino community so much so, that it leaves the IBM culture at a bit of a loss. By their normal practices, you "should" have been shifted around several times by now. They can't really do that without pissing off too many Lotus people. I think they moved Ambuj "just in time" for this not to happen with him as well, as he is in my experience someone who really can generate personal loyalty and respect.

Ed, you're not Steve Jobs, but from the standpoint of an IBM culture you may as well be. If IBM had the sense of how to deal with fans, you'd have a big part of the Lotusphere OGS, and so would Rocky Oliver.

Here's what SHOULD happen at an OGS:

1. The "Head Guy" -- Mike Rhodin this year -- has a small but important part. Think of how Lou Gerstner played that part some years back. The less the big man says, the more important the words are.

2. The big marketing/sales public face leader -- the acknowledged leader of the good fight against the evil competitors -- does the primary role of M.C. That would be you, Ed.

3. The Tech side M.C. also should be someone the crowd gets. That would be Rocky. Rocky understands that crowd and and will make them happy, while he introduces the various other heros -- not the least of which would be Maureen on the designer side and Mary Beth on the client user interface side.

Instead, what IBM is likely to do is:

-1. Give most of the floor time to Mike Rhodin, who doesn't need it and doesn't represent the "Domino Rocks, Microsoft Doesn't" attitude even if he does in fact feel that way.

-2. Ignore crowd favorites like Rocky -- who are experienced, tech-savy, presenters who have been doing paid speaking gigs for decades -- in favor of over scripted low-excitement demos crowded into the corners of the executive speeches targeted at analysts who don't listen to them or take them at face value anyway.

-3. Give vast amounts of time to mid-level executives that most in the crowd have never heard of, talking about big abstract ideas.

I'm convinced that one of the reasons for this is a complete and total cultural blind spot when it comes to what an audience wants rather than what an analyst wants.

ALL OF WHICH -- is exactly why IBM can sell a million hard disks to Dell, but can't sell one hard disk to me effectively.

Andrew Pollack, 2007-12-10

Actually, Andrew, there are good reasons why neither Rock nor I are great candidates for the OGS. Tom Duff asked a question about this on his blog a few weeks ago, and as I explained there, I've never really wanted to be a part of the OGS. One main one is geography -- they do rehearsals for weeks in advance of the OGS, and I can't be in Boston for all that time. That's been especially true for all those years that we had sales meetings/education in the weeks before Lotusphere. I figure personally that I have enough other ways to talk to customers all year, Lotusphere should be an opportunity for those who don't.

(Now, the closing session is a different story, as we write the script for those five minutes of remarks starting around Wednesday morning, and I've been part of that team for several years. One year, Ambuj actually approved Sandra Marcus and me hosting the closing session, but one of those mid-level executives saw that his passport to Lotus was expiring and took it away from us).

As for the moving around element, I acknowledge that the Lotus tattoo on my @ss has typecast me a bit when it comes to the typical IBM career. But a sales executive who has grown their business for twelve consecutive quarters doesn't typically then sit still in that role for life...(aside: it is actually my seventh different job responsibility in my 13.5 years at Lotus.) The problem for me personally is that I haven't yet found a job in another part of IBM that is as exciting as working with end-user technology. I'm sure at some point, though, I'll want to do something different. But thanks for the mad props :)

Ed Brill, 2007-12-10

Wow, unless I'm mistaken Ed, you've just aid that you're too important to take the time to do that job -- in contrast to Gates, Jobs, or even Rhodin?

:-)

Personally, I think the one time you're speaking to thousands of your customers and supporters at once would be an excellent time to have your best possible speakers up there. Maybe that's just me.

Andrew Pollack, 2007-12-10

Andrew: spot on. Great post re the OGS.

Ben Poole, 2007-12-10

The less the big man says, the more important the words are.

The big man is a man of many words.

Volker Weber, 2007-12-10

@Andrew, completely agree.

Had never really thought about it in those terms, but you are absolutely correct. Too many mid-level execs, too many canned demos, and not enough passion or assertiveness re: Lotus' position in the marketplace.

This has come up elsewhere this week, but I do think that the dormant Rhodin blog does say a huge about about his passion (or lack of it) for the community, as opposed to the yellow-bleeders you mention...

Stuart McIntyre, 2007-12-10

@Stuart - I don't want to run Mike Rhodin down here, and surely that wasn't my intent. I can't imagine running a company the size of Lotus and having time to blog regularly. That said, his personality isn't the sort you're going to see attack the competition at a crowded venue with "fire in his belly". I think he probably sees public speaking as a difficult chore. I think Ed probably enjoys the hell out of it. You can see the difference on stage.

Andrew Pollack, 2007-12-10

Unless I'm mistaken Ed, you've just aid that you're too important to take the time to do that job -- in contrast to Gates, Jobs, or even Rhodin?I know you put a smiley after that, but I just want to make sure it's clear -- the issues are 1) rehearsals 1000 miles from home, 2) I've been a sales/marketing guy for the last few years, and they typically choose to put technical people and the various executives in the keynote and 3) when we've had sales meetings in January, there's just too much else going on. There are other issues which aren't worth mentioning here, but it's not a case of self-importance -- who doesn't want to be in IBM's biggest keynote speech (audience size)?

I've got a session in the "big room" this year, so it should be a fun time (Wednesday, 3 PM...)

Ed Brill, 2007-12-10

Alan was in the OGS a few years back and did a fantastic job.

Bruce Elgort, 2007-12-10

@Bruce, you mean Ed? Alan is Ed remember :)

Carl Tyler, 2007-12-10

"Since what is really a sad history for Linux is the gfx GUI such as KDE and Gnome that really are crap compared to the OS/2 WPS."
True, true.

Thomas Langel, 2007-12-10

I sure hope to see you guys here to sign the petition; the linux community can clearly gain from the sources as well. The petition, if you haven't found it yet, can be found at http://www.os2world.com/petition

Kim Haverblad

Kim Haverblad, 2007-12-11

I note that the Redbook petition is now up to 346 signatures (thanks Volker). Not the 11k+ of the OS2 one, but still growing at least, with some good comments from the signatories. I appreciate the efforts of all that have supported it.

Of more note is the lack of response from IBM (perceived or actual) regarding petitions and community views such as this. It wouldn't take much effort to simply announce that they are aware of the support for such a move, appreciate its intent, but regret that such an action would be impossible for reasons X, Y and Z.

Stuart McIntyre, 2007-12-11

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