In another thread, I had mentioned and Kim had commented on IBM's apparent wish to make OS/2 just go away. There is ample evidence in IBM's business practices--they used to be much more generous in sharing downloads and tech support on their Web sites--and the continual removal of references to OS/2.I just came across one of the most glaring examples I've seen of this prejudice against a former child--a Redbook entitled:
OS/2 to Linux Client Transition
http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246621.pdf
with cover topics like, "Discover how to replace OS/2
clients with Linux"
That must seem like rather a slap in the face, since the eCS folks mention the cooperation of IBM in developing eCS 1.2. Some of you that read and contribute to this forum may have more details about IBM's attitude and what their contribution amounted to and about the original licensing agreement to allow Serenity Systems to continue to develop OS/2.
Professionally about 1996, I found myself on the losing side of a project to select an operating system for the office I worked in. I proposed Warp 4 and Warp Server; the promoters of Windows NT won that battle. That cost me some credibility and the roughly four years of my life that I dedicated to learning the ins and outs of OS/2. In the last year, I've been experimenting with different flavors of Linux, an iBook with OS X, and recently bought a copy of eCS 1.2 for a desktop replacement for W2k. I have also been looking for a platform for a small personal networks, including a Lotus Domino server. This will eventually feed into small consulting projects, generally in the volunteer area.
In general, I have not been impressed with Linux as a desktop client, other than the version that Xandros publishes. Red Hat and SuSE seem to have clumsy interfaces, though that is undoubtedly partly due to my relative ignorance about how to tweek them to be more appealing. Xandros seems to provide more features for adjusting desktop preferences, but again I am judging from experience with OS/2 and the Win NT family. Xandros uses Crossover, the commercial exploitation of the Wine project, to run a selected group of Win32 applications and does this well. This seemed to be a well-founded business decision by Xandros management, many of whom were with this product when it was WordPerfect Linux. Applications were a major reason that OS/2 conceded the desktop market to Microsoft, and Crossover's ability to run the most popular Win32 applications does an end run around this problem. Xandros has certainly been my choice for a migration away from Windows--a long held desire that has been a long time in coming. While it is early days for my judgement about eCS, it seems like the OS/2 that I would have liked as a followon to Warp 4. The OS/2 object model was so far ahead of the one that Microsoft used for NT that I think OS/2 has aged well in the intervening years. It was a joy to start using eCS with the controls that fell readily to hand, though dragging with the right mouse button is going to take some relearning. I am looking forward to seeing how eCS can deal with Win32 apps and how seamlessly eCS can join a SMB peer network.
About the time that Windows NT4 took over my desktop, I started a Lotus Notes database to record screwups in the operation of NTW4, later W2k, and to a more limited extent, some of the other MS products. This has grown to a collection of over 400 Notes documents, complete with smoking gun screen shots and explanations of the context in which the errors occurred. My intention has been to distill the content of that database into a Web site that more dispassionately, but convincingly summarizes my collection. I've gotten as far as a few pages addressed to the vulnerabilities of MS software and what computer users can choose as an alternative to Windows. I will certainly add eCS to that list of alternatives. If you would like to review my organized rant against MS products, you can find it at:
http://www2.famvid.com/rneg1/public_html/Systems/TechPol/WF/WVHead/WFEIndex_VunerabHeadlines.htm
Two notes: This group of pages was written for a non-technical audience, partly as an answer to the frequent question, "Well if you dislike Microsoft so much, what would you suggest?"
Recently I have not kept the site current with announced vulnerabilities.
Critiques of the site are always welcome, especially from an informed set of readers like yourselves.
Brian Wallen