> viro@math.psu.edu (Alexander Viro) wrote on 23.06.99 in <Pine.GSO.4.10.9906230022160.17822-100000@weyl.math.psu.edu>:
>
> > On 22 Jun 1999, Kai Henningsen wrote:
>
> > > Wrt. OS/2:
> > >
> > > Its death is a pure marketing effect: IBM didn't really market it.
> >
> > Not only. They've failed to leak enough information to create a productive
> > culture (see Lions, etc.). BTW, I'm completely serious - AFAICS there is
> > nothing similar to UNIX culture around OS/2. There goes the possibility to
> > affect future designs.
>
> AFAICT, the culture was definitely there. And I certainly don't know about
> any serious missing information. And it was definitely Uniy-like.
Hmm... It's interesting. At some moment I tried to find a decent description
of kernel internals. Most of OS/2 folks I knew were FightoNet sysops
and some of them were distinctly non-luserish. I could answer their
questions re UNIX-related FM to R. They couldn't. And it wasn't a matter
of inability to find books in .su - Lions and (4.3) Daemon Book went in
many copies. *That* kind of samizdat was absolutely standard way to get
documentation. Hell knows... If you are aware of any decent description of
OS/2 kernel - share, OK?
> In fact, back when I was running OS/2, I had ext2 access from OS/2. Plus
> *two* different gcc ports. Plus a real GNU tar able to work with my SCSI
> tape drive, and all manner of other Unix-like utilities. Not to mention
> loads of OS/2-specific utilities.
>
> IBM killed it.
>
> They had a PowerPC port that they never marketed at all - I'm told you
> could buy it if you somehow manages to get the product number from
> somewhere. Their marketing was rather infantile, and got only cheaper.
> They delivered hardware and software with better NT than OS/2 support.
>
> Now if it had been Open Source, it might have survived this.
s/Open/available in/. v6 was not too open, after all. And I'm not sure
that AT&T had worked their balls out marketing it.
ObUnrelated: yet another week from hell. Sigh... Ever did over-the-phone
handholding for luser who blew the CVS up? Yeah, he had backups. Lots of
them. Unfortunately he had fscked the thing up *long* ago. Yup, tried to
live with two vendor branches. With usual results. And indeed he claimed
that he never did anything like that...
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