
A 21st-century version of OS/2 Warp may be released soon - MilnerRoute
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/03/25/0529201/a-21st-century-version-of-os2-warp-may-be-released-soon
======
saghm
(emphasis mine):

> Blue Lion, which appears to be in closed beta with March 31st 2017 cited as
> the target release date, will come with up to date Firefox browser and
> Thunderbird mail client, _Apache OpenOffice_ , other productivity tools, a
> new package manager, and software update and support subscription to ensure
> system stability.

How is OpenOffice still being used in so many different places? Hasn't it be
basically dead and superseded by LibreOffice for years?

~~~
JulianMorrison
My guess is: some of the users still attached to OS/2 are big corporates. And
they really, really like official things. Having the Oracle name associated
with Openoffice, and even the Apache name, makes it much more saleable.

~~~
sjwright
At this point its borderline ridiculous that Apache hasn't turned Apache
OpenOffice into a branded distribution of LibreOffice.

------
jhbadger
Kudos for having this be a slashdot link. A blast-from-the-past reporting on a
blast-from-the-past.

~~~
antod
Yeah I was almost more surprised by the Slashdot bit than the OS/2 bit.

~~~
astrodust
Slashdot and OS/2 date from the same era, and ironically cater to the same
sort of crowd.

~~~
yuhong
The entire OS/2 2.0 fiasco dates back to the early 1990s, before Slashdot even
existed.

------
beders
OS/2 was pretty advanced back in the day. Something like System Object Model
is still nowhere to be seen on modern desktops.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_Object_Model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System_Object_Model)

Instead we are now at distributing whole browser engines with a few kilobytes
of HTML and JS to 'integrate' into the desktop and call those applications.

------
jmspring
I recall using OS/2 as my development platform while at Netscape. Win16, Win32
andOS/2 builds on one platform. Plus it had a much better networking stack.

Continued to run Warp for a few years and recently set up a VM with
Ecomstation so I could play the original Galactic Civilizations again.

This should be j retesting to check out.

------
mark_l_watson
In its day, OS/2 was great for developers, supporting multiple DOS versions,
Windows 3, and native OS/2.

I would expect some companies to still support software on these platforms, so
Blue Lion does make sense.

~~~
yuhong
The entire OS/2 2.0 fiasco is one of my favorite topics. Of course, I know
that it is too late now.

~~~
agumonkey
I'd love to read about this, any pointers ? (although I've read a few
articles, but probably not the whole story)

~~~
yuhong
Look up the old MS OS/2 2.0 SDKs from 1990, as well as the term "NT OS/2".
There are a lot of anti-trust exhibits you can read, including PX00307. If you
don't know the terms "Microsoft Munchkins" and "Steve Barkto" already, look
them up.

~~~
agumonkey
I knew none of these, thanks.

------
amorphid
I hope it ships with drivers for my 3dfx Voodoo 5!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_5)

~~~
prodmerc
The 5500 used to be my dream graphics adapter at some point, for a long time.
Dual chip design? They even had SLI capability in the Voodoo 2 iirc. Was so
cool at the time :D

------
walterbell
How will this be different from eComStation with $300 business and $20
personal licenses, [http://ecomstation.com](http://ecomstation.com)?

Hopefully this updated OS/2 will run as an AWS/Xen virtual machine.

Edit: mirror at [https://archive.is/U1eTf](https://archive.is/U1eTf) says Arca
Noae's Blue Lion will support upgrades from both OS/2 & eComStation, will
include VM images for "select hypervisors" and can run ported Linux apps.

~~~
jccalhoun
I was wondering how this was related to ecomstation as well. It looks like
this company was founded by ex-ecomstation employees: [https://web-
beta.archive.org/web/20160324222948/https://www....](https://web-
beta.archive.org/web/20160324222948/https://www.arcanoae.com/about/) >Arca
Noae was founded in July, 2014 when several of the developers who previously
worked on the eComStation project felt that the future for the platform looked
bleak, a feeling which came about due to lack of progress (or any work being
done at all), therefor demonstrating a distinct lack of commitment on the part
of the projects new owner.

------
the_duke
How about linking to [https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-
lion/](https://www.arcanoae.com/blue-lion/) instead of a Slashdot submission?

~~~
walterbell
There are many commments in the Slashdot discussion. The vendor's site is
being Slashdotted, currently slow to respond.

mirror: [https://archive.is/U1eTf](https://archive.is/U1eTf)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Slashdot doesn't have enough users to take down sites any more.

------
cyberferret
I remember setting up a small BBS back in the '80s using OS/2 Warp - it was
about the only OS at the time which could support multiple modems reliably.
Total footprint probably smaller than most web pages I visit these days.

Still got a boxed set of IBM OS/2 Warp complete with 3.5" disks sitting around
here somewhere...

~~~
pmarin
OS/2 Warp is from 1994.

------
KC8ZKF
"Finishing touches can often take longer than expected. Because we want ArcaOS
5.0 to be the best that it can be, Arca Noae has made the difficult decision
to delay release two weeks, with a new projected delivery date of April 15,
2017."[1]

[1][https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos-5-0-launch-on-hold-for-a-
few...](https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos-5-0-launch-on-hold-for-a-few-more-
days/)

------
wvenable
What's the market for something like this? It seems every few years somebody
is releasing a new OS/2\. Who is buying it and why?

~~~
walterbell
Some customers are listed at [http://ecomstation.com](http://ecomstation.com),
probably they have complex enterprise apps that work reliably and are cheaper
to maintain than rewriting code and retraining users:

    
    
      Alstom, Germany
      AustriaCard, Austria
      Belgacom, Belgium
      Bilfinger Mauell GmbH, Germany
      Boeing, USA
      Bowe, Bell + Howell, USA
      Canadian Coast Guard, Canada
      Caterpillar, Singapore
      Colgate Palmolive, USA
      Fujitsu, Japan
      Johnson & Johnson, USA
      MIT, USA
      Max Planck Institut, Germany
      Michelin, France
      Norwich Union, UK
      OCE BV, The Netherlands
      Pittsburgh Embossing Services, USA
      Qatar Petroleum, Qatar
      Siemens AG, Germany
      Standard Bank, South Africa
      Trustco Bank, USA
      US Postal Services, USA
      Universal Instruments Corp, USA

~~~
Spooky23
Trustco Bank made me chuckle. I had a mortgage with them as they didn't
require PMI or escrow (probably because they couldn't calculate it)

They are a regional bank near me whose former CEO's core objective with
respect to technology is to stay as backwards as possible to make it overly
costly and difficult to acquire them.

They literally as recently as 2013 had no computers in the branches. Only some
amber terminals. They were buying TV ads a year ago announcing mobile banking.
Their statements were still printed on impact paper, and transactions took 3
days to post.

I think they got fined by the Feds and were forced to modernize. In any case,
a bizarre place and not surprising that they remain OS/2 users.

~~~
jacquesm
I wished my banks were that reliable. I'm not sure whether 'open all the time
except when DDOS'd' is a real improvement over a predictable paper based bank
that simply always works.

The only time I missed salary payments (and I still feel bad about that) is
when my banks systems were inaccessible on the day we normally pay salaries.
In the past when it took 3 days to process the transactions we never missed
because we calculated that consistent delay into the date we'd send in the
transactions.

So now I do it 'on the day' and if the bank doesn't perform on that day
everybody is screwed.

Tricky equation: 3 days, 100% reliable vs instant, 99% reliable.

~~~
nickpsecurity
"I wished my banks were that reliable. I'm not sure whether 'open all the time
except when DDOS'd' is a real improvement over a predictable paper based bank
that simply always works."

High-assurance engineer, Clive Robinson, and I both recommend paper over
computers wherever possible for high-risk stuff. It's unhackable. The leaks
require riskier action. They usually only take what they can carry.
Destruction is expensive but straight-forward with cross-cut shredders. People
know how to protect the stuff because it's same skills they're used to at
home.

And so on. Next thing to do is avoid Internet in favor of leased lines over
VPN's if you can afford them. Boring-ass transactional processing on boring,
well-maintained servers. Straight-up delete code you don't need out of the OS.
App memory-safe using simple protocols.

There's ways we can make it better on computers. Paper is still safer, though.
Especially after decades of mitigations developed in response to people like
Frank Abignale.

