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June 1999
editor@os2voice.org

Warpicity Proposal, One More Time

By: Louis Muollo - Redoaks@worldnet.att.net

Hopefully you have read Lynn Maxson's article on his Warpicity Proposal . You either agree, disagree, or don't want to get involved. Much discussion takes place as to how OS/2 is worlds above Windows, or NT, or even Linux. We OS/2 users know this to be true.

So, here we are handed a golden opportunity to at least give a good shot to keeping OS/2 alive. No one wants an OS that is dead in the water. Lets take the line thrown.

If you think that this idea can't fly, let me use our system again to convince you otherwise. Our system had two owners that bought the software from the developer. They acted as the "contacts" to get the user wants to the developer. These people hired a developer and a programming engineer. These employees wrote drivers, upgraded software, handled tech calls by phone, one even wrote an interface to run the system on DOS. At this time, the engineer is part time, but has done various modules and the Y2K upgrade. One person, part time, to keep this system up and running because businesses depend on it. There is no substitute for efficiency.

If you follow Linux at all, you have seen the ripples generated by exclusive libraries, by large corporations "buying in", by Microsoft's threats to twist this OS to their own ends. The current issue of "Linux Journal" has Linux Standards as a cover feature. This could be a positive thing for OS/2. If the Linux guru's see OS/2 as a viable system, some might come over to it. These people are prolific. But support seems to be drying up. When I bought OpenLinux, there was no LS120 support, even though OS/2, a «dead system» had it. USB development is just under way. I'm sure those that need it and are capable have it. But Linux hackers may not be freely distributing it on the web for all to use, as they used to. Maybe they don't want the large distributors taking and using their stuff for expensive versions of Linux.

There would be nothing wrong with getting these people into the OS/2 community. With a little work and money, we can stop the downward spiral of this great operating system. As far as the 50,000 users at $20.00 each, some of us, who can swing it, can pledge $50.00, $100.00 or whatever. If the 50,000 goal is reached, the excess can be credited or refunded. I will pledge $200.00 right now, because I think OS/2 is worth it.

In all the reading I have done as far as Linux goes, I have seen much about wine and wabi and DOS support. I have all this in OS/2. I run dozens of DOS and Win3.11 programs on my Warp machines. I have also seen rantings about Windows, and NT. But for OS/2, the one negative was "it's proprietary". Well, they were right, that almost killed Warp. But it hasn't yet.

Please, let's see that it doesn't.


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