The purpose of this section is to provide a forum for our readers to voice their opinions and thoughts on issues related to OS/2. If you have an observation, concern, gripe or compliment regarding something, please feel free to send them to the OS/2 CONNECT editor for inclusion in this section, at: Title & Publisher or complete the form at the bottom of this page.
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Why do we cry that OS/2 is dead? What makes us so different then all other computer users in America? Because we hate Bill? We hate ourselves? Why do we keep struggling on with OS/2; because we dislike IBM so much that in spite of them we go on? Many questions, many reasons; no answers. Who or why at IBM do they not want to support a better OS? Why do they use a MS product at IBM? For myself I will always use and support OS/2, to quote Rush Limbaugh, "A mind numbed robot." What we lack is a central point of development. If somehow Stardock, Sundial, and others could come together to produce software/hardware for OS/2. We then have to start a low level ad campaign, showing the superiority of OS/2 over the MS platform. Then we also have to have the best computer to operate OS/2 on. I think we can all see that even in the MS field there are less and less software products being written, as more and more companies are either bought by MS or just go out of business. Now I am rambling a little, but I will get it off my chest now. If Apple can make a small comeback, then OS/2 can without IBM. We only need one e-mail program, only one spreadsheet, one word processor. What we need are products that we don't already have, like native scanner support and Interfaces, I am using CFM, and it has its limits. I don't have a way to write to a CD, like HP provides for Windows, e.g., drag and drop. We do not have video capture card support. And above all why is so much time and effort being put into this Win95 to OS/2 conversion? Why are we not writing programs in native OS2 or at least in Java?
I read your editorial. I guess in some senses there will be an OS/2 v5 "fat client" since, according to recent IBM statements as reported in Warpcast, Aurora can be used as one (with or without the server components installed). Alternatively one could sort of say that with the addition of the Aurora client support added to Warp 4 is essentially such a fat client since (as I understand it) Aurora will be using the Warp 4 WPS interface.
While rumors are beginning to abound about discussions within IBM on what should or should not be included with Aurora as "desktop product," there are no official announcements I've heard of. Would an end user need to purchase the entire Aurora product just to get Aurora as a fat client. While some of us will probably do so, I cannot imagine that number being very large at all.
Still, I agree that OS/2's days as any kind of stand-alone are numbered, at least at IBM. I've thought so since before Warp 4 was released. IBM simply cannot and/or will not market themselves or their products outside their big corporation base and I am convinced that they never will. I do not foresee IBM releasing those components of the OS/2 source code that would enable OS/2 to continue as a grassroots product. I also think that the leading edge of "I don't wanna be locked into Windows" young innovators have or will be moving to Linux.
As for a "JavaOS", I hope it is at least successfully created. However, is a LOT easier to say than it is to do! In fact, without a microkernal architecture I think it will be a bigger nightmare than was OS/2 for the PowerPC. Thus the further IBM is able to implement "pure" Java, the more people who once were the fireballs in/of Team OS/2 will be running it....on other non-Windows OS's such as Linux or maybe even Solaris now that Sun is freely distributing it for non-commercial use.
Don't get me wrong here. I will still be running OS/2 for at least a long time to come. Warp 4 alone is still far superior to any version of Windows that has ever been released or "vapor-wared." There is not yet one single scrap of software that absolutely requires Win32 as implemented under Win9x or WinNT that I have the time (....there are a couple of cool games...) or for which I have a need or interest. All the things it is said that I can or will be able to do with Windows, I have already been doing for years with OS/2.
Indeed, if it comes down to it (at least with respect to some certain multimedia capabilities), I'll buy a Mac before I'll use native Windows with only two exceptions:
I liked your editorial, Tim! My opinions are a bit different, and yet I concur with your analysis.
As a follow-up to your editorial, at the May meeting, the Pittsburgh OS/2 User Group also talked about renaming the group to include Java. Our numbers too have been falling off and this was basically a strategy meeting. IBM had just downsized our contacts and it was obvious we were no longer going to be able to hold our meetings at the IBM building. For now we are still the Pittsburgh OS/2 User Group. For how long, only time will tell.
Well I think IBM is blowing it again. With what looked like the last big push to try to save OS/2 by integrating Java into the OS is failing. Microsoft has done it again by not following anything but what they want to do and have in their own way silenced the networked computer from the industry and continues to promote the PC as the only "true networked computer." Sun is not helping any and neither is Bill's best friend PC Magazine. The fear induced into the populace is not being quenched by anything but the next version of Windows. The industry says, "There now, don't you feel safe. You have Windows on your computer not something as dangerous and slow as Java." So what does Microsoft do? Create their own version and include it in Windows 95. Five million copys later Microsoft gets taken to court again and now outside people publicize the confusion about Java between IBM, SUN and Netscape. All Microsoft has to do is stir up some dust and the world listens. You don't get to be the richest man in the world without trechery. Its a proven fact. I beleive Microsoft is using the same trick that killed OS/2 to begin with. Make sure PC Magazine knows how slowwww it is. Not how usefull! Then we need the test that PC Magazine does to fail OS/2 but not Windows or Mac. Remember only Microsoft knows how to write software and operating systems. Its already been published and proven. PC Magazine said and I quote, "Compared with native code, Java VM's are excruciatingly slow." "Java cannot compete with nativley compiled C++ code" (Vol. 17, No. 7 April 7, 1998, page 104). Now from page 146 of the same issue: "OS/2 didn't fare nearly as well on our compatability tests. It landed near the end of the pack, running only 4 of the 12 applets successfully." And finally some pasty resistance: "For the second year in a row the Microsoft Java environment was the fastest and the most compatable on our tests and wins the Editors Choice." Doesn't this just make you puke. Hey who wrote Java anyway? How come Netscape is not written in 100% pure Java which will run on any platform? One source file. A programmer's dream. Nothing is flowing in any direction that IBM and Sun would like. Java is destined to be a 1% market share and nothing more than an applet that looks pretty on a web page unless something is done.
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