On Monday 19 January 2004 7:16 pm, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:
How can OS2 be alive when IBM reportedly abandoned it years ago. is it open source??
Seems to me there was a famous quote along the lines of "rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated" [or something like that] While on the surface it appears IBM wants to kill/has killed OS/2, the reality is that it is far too entrenched in "behind the scenes" places for that to happen. For instance, as was hinted at earlier in the thread, several ATM's use OS/2 -- not something you generally think about, but consider the migration effort that would have to ensue to switch everything over to "something else" at the drop of a hat. That's not to say "it won't happen..." because I've heard reports that it is happening (or has happened in some areas...) but with windows really being the OS de' Jour (i.e., the flavor seems to change daily) REPEATEDLY going through "transitions" is not something that banks and other financial institutions are going to stand for, so they don't. Fortunately, for ATM's [at least], they don't really need anything more complicated/involved than standard "DOS" -- there isn't much need to "multitask" with only one function to provide, now is there? (I initially was going to say "with one person at the keyboard", but outside of game consoles, when was the last time you saw two people working on the same "workstation"?) -- Yet another Blog: http://osnut.homelinux.net