From: Bert Haskins (bhaskins_at_triton.net)
Date: Thu Feb 14 2002 - 14:45:56 EST
/* !!!!! RANT WARNING !!!!!
I was/am a software developer from the late 60s to the present although
today
I'm mostly retired and only take on projects that I really want.
IMHO OS/2 blew away the whole basket when during the short critical period
when
they had a true 32-bit OS and microsoft didn't some pointy-hair pea-brained
manager
decided it would be a good business plan to (badly) screw the small
developer.
They did change this later but by then they had POed most of us and BG and
company
had a win32s and NT 32bit sort-of system.
If you follow the history of the personal computer, most of the killer-apps
were at
least started by the real propeller heads.
This is why I truly believe that someday groups like this will be delivering
the eulogy
and doing the monday-morning quarterback number on what caused microsoft to
throw it all away.
I got very angry with them when they decided to rape and pillage my beloved
'C' with that
!@#$%^ C# . Nobody needs crap like that (except microsoft).
This, the new EULA, and a bunch of other things have made me decided to blow
them away
and believe me, I'm not alone..
The winner? Linux of course and if you haven't tried it lately, I'll try to
urge you to do it.
I bounce back and forth between Red Hat and Mandrake but both of these are
very!!
good and getting better.
With Linux why is there any need for OS/2?
-- Bert
end RANT warning */
"Dr. Jeffrey Race" wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 21:05:13 -0600, Len Conrad wrote:
>
> >>(leaving aside os/2, which came later and was never marketed properly)
>
> Could we please get this straight for the record? IBM marketed OS/2
> aggressively, and I got tons of support from them. They got stuck on
> the same problem that MS did, viz. these are complex systems which
> require lots of support to work right, particularly when you have
> lazy "whatever" users, which most American users are. (OS/2 is still
> hot in Germany, because the Germans have not yet degenerated to American
> cultural levels.) IBM and MS have come to different solutions.
>
> IBM: Support serious users who are willing to pay annual fees for
> a bulletproof system. (IBM still sells OS/2, still supports
> it to businesses, and has licensed the kernel to a private
> firm who sell it as part of an enhanced package for power
> users; development continues. I am one of these users.) You
> have to pay a few hundred dollars a year for this (wonderful)
> support.
>
> MS: Produce not a bulletproof system but one that works well most
> of the time for most casual users. Push off the support
> burden on the hardware vendor. Get revenue by releasing
> upgrades which are in practice mandatory due to intentional
> version incompatibilities. However this model has problems
> so eventually move (XP) to an annual lease model in which the
> customer is eternally imprisoned by the system's non-modularity,
> secret hooks, and proprietary embedded processes like Passport
> for support.
>
> Both systems make money for their owners. The difference is one
> system is built to sound engineering standards for reliability,
> security and supportability, sold on an ethical business model, and
> produces a good reputation for its proponent. The other is a
> security and operational nightmare, is traded using unethical (and
> occasional criminal methods) and causes the firm to be universally
> hated.
>
> I write this with no animus and I think it is a fair summary.
>
> Jeffrey Race
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