Re: Should IBM release OS/2 as open source? [article]

John Thompson wrote:

> ["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.os2.misc.]
> On 2005-07-21, David T. Johnson <djohnson@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> "The news that IBM will stop selling OS/2 is not surprising. What is
>> surprising, to me at least, is that there are users who still care about
>> OS/2 (apparently quite deeply) and are asking IBM to release OS/2 as
>> open source."
>>
>>
>> http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/index.php?p=382
>
> The real question isn't "should they" but "can they release OS/2 as open
> source?" since large parts of OS/2 are encumbered by restrictive
> third-party licenses.
>
I doubt that the entire source tree is encumbered by restrictive third-party
licenses. Bill Gates in "The Road Ahead" spends much of his OS/2 chpater
on complaining that IBM encumbered it with mainframe stylings, and if most
of OS/2 had've been Microsoft's, he wouldn't've mentioned that.

I think IBM's removed as much as they could over the years as well - they
made a point of boasting about that IIRC in the early nineties. That once
the reciprocal licensing with Microsoft had finished, they were free to
take it off down their own path.

Wesley Parish
--
"Good, late in to more rewarding well."  "Well, you tonight.  And I was
lookintelligent woman of Ming home.  I trust you with a tender silence."  I
get a word into my hands, a different and unbelike, probably - 'she
fortunate fat woman', wrong word.  I think to me, I justupid.
Let not emacs meta-X dissociate-press write your romantic dialogs...!!!
.