Serenity Systems announced the immediate availability of eComStation 2.0 RC3, The Warpstock Europe 2007 release.
This release is available to customers with an active Software Subscriptions Services subcription. It adds a few new features and contains a lot of updated drivers and fixes.
eComStation Release 2.0-RC3 Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department?
“I must make my dirty… my duty clean… clear, and announce the suspendering of the upcoming graduating exercises which will not and cannot… uh, which aren’t taking place. But don’t worry. Your food, housing, insecurity will be guaranteed by your Department of Redundancy Department and the Natural Guard.”
Sorry, I cannot resist a Firesign Theatre reference (especially such a Spooner-iffic one).
It looks great – but at least a year too late.
O S(o) 2(rue).
Actually, I just wish the dang thing was a little less expensive than the freakin’ full version of Vista Home Premium!! What’s it made out of, gold??? (I mean, for the same price, who would rather have an incompatible OS??)
The price is high for a couple of reasons; They have to pay royalties to both IBM and MS since their code is in eComstation.
Plus its a profitable niche.
If you are student (or in academia) you can get it for $99.
At my school I can get Microsoft products for free, minus the cost of shipping and handling. So even $99 is a piss poor deal.
cry me a river.
Well, given the fact there are Windows emulators out there there’s no reason to keep a copy of Win 3.1 inside OS/2. A piece of software like Qemu would make it possible to run almost anything paying royalties to no-one.
There isn’t a native port of QEMU to either OS/2 or eCS that I’m aware of, which is too bad — I’ve love to run a linux kernel in such an setup under eCS. Because of this, I don’t think there’s another way to run Windows 3.1 programs under OS/2. Odin is a Win32 emulation, not Win16.
FWIW, the WinOS2 subsystem is a fairly flexible thing; it’s a copy of Windows 3.11 rewritten as a DPMI client and running in its own VDM, and it does tend to work fairly well.
In any case, I don’t think IBM pays MS royalties for the Windows 3.1 code anymore, anyway — if royalties to MS are still being paid, they’re probably for things like HPFS (which MS developed in the mid-80’s but strangely threw away in favor of abominations like FAT32.
A full license for eCS includes a license for the OS/2 Warp 4 client product on which it based — and IBM is still charging Serenity Systems an arm and a leg for that OS/2 license.
That’s why folks can convert an existing OS/2 Warp 4 license to eCS inexpensively. They’ve already paid IBM for the copy of OS/2 included.
eComStation has an identity problem.
The company who sells eComStation believes it’s worth $259 plus $89 for an annual subscription to software updates. Its hard enough for Windows Vista to justify such cost.
So how does an OS/2 dervivative with a feature set competitive to maybe Windows 95 SR 2.5 do it?
Edited 2007-11-03 08:15
Because there’s a small but profitable niche to support legacy OS/2 apps.
I would like to try eCS but the price keeps me from doing so.
At the very least you can play around with the LiveCD version, though that is very limited and is based on an older version of eCS (1.2).
http://www.ecomstation.com/democd/
Apparently you haven’t got much knowledge about eCS and its features – to make such a comparison.
It still got features and behaviours that Vista lacks.
Edited 2007-11-03 20:25
Then don’t install Win-eCS – it’s optional.
Edited 2007-11-03 20:25
Win-os/2 or win-eCS is not the root of the royalty problem to micrsoft, but rather the fact that os/2 started its life as a joint venture between ibm and microsoft. So actually version 1 and 1.2 of os/2 shared alot with MS products. Also NT was developed based partially off of os/2, so there is alot more entanglement there than just a win 3.1 emulator.
{Comment was duplicated unintentionally)
Edited 2007-11-05 20:19
The original 16-bit OS/2 1.x was certainly a joint IBM and Microsoft venture, but later versions of OS/2 use a 32-bit kernel and completely new OO desktop written by IBM, and most of the rest of the code which came from the joint project with Microsoft was phased out by OS/2 Warp 4 in late 1996. I think even the HPFS code has been replaced, though Microsoft might still hold some IP rights related to that filesystem.
Windows NT was originally somewhat based on code from the joint OS/2 1.x project, but after Microsoft hired Dave Cutler and other folks from DEC, the Windows NT project was almost completely rearchitected, and the versions of Windows NT which actually reached the store shelves (Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 through Windows Vista) have very little in common with OS/2.
Using the two products makes the fundamental differences between the two rather obvious, and while some of their respective native API calls have some similarities, the underlying implementations are not at all similar.
NT 3.x and 4.x DID have a limited OS/2 VIO substytem, but that was a bolt-on just like its POSIX subsystem, and it was generally considered to be almost useless as a platform on which to run OS/2 software.
If you seriously think that eCS is comparable to an flavor of Win9x in terms of general features, I would politely suggest that you don’t have much clue about eCS’s capabilities as an operating system.
The two OSes existed at roughly the same time (OS/2 2.0 actually predated Win95 to market by three years), but OS/2 2.x and later was one or two generations ahead of Microsoft’s Windows 9.x line in almost all respects, and it was (and is) also arguably ahead of Windows NT and its successors in several respects (OS/2 is much smaller, faster, far more responsive under load, has a better native scripting language, has a MUCH more flexible desktop, has better legacy software support in general, etc.).
OK, Warptock Europe 2007 is in progress: Valkenswaard:
http://www.warpstock.eu/en/agenda/presentation_timetable.html
there are some photos: http://en.ecomstation.ru/showarticle.php?id=168
(presentation of eComStation 2.0)
Edited 2007-11-03 08:58
Anyone know whether it’s possible to get eCS to run under VMWare Fusion? I can’t seem to get 1.2R to install – would v2.0 be any different?
I can get it to run using VPC on my Windows machine, but would rather have it running under OS X as that is what I use most. I’ve heard it runs under Parallels but not perfectly, so I don’t want to switch VM.
Looking forward to the GA though – seems like it’s been an awfully long wait.
In regular vmware 5.5 and 6.0 for linux it works fine. I use it for cross plattform development on an everyday basis. works just great. I dont know about fusion though. Fusion is maybe stripped down too much… cant even use a physical hard drive. Pfff i say =)
Yes, I’d heard it ran on regular VMWare. Odd that – hopefully it will be addressed in some future release.
Actually, I don’t find the cost of eComstation to be that great, especially, if you are a previously registered user. You can upgrade fairly inexpensively, and you get the full version each time. My experience is that it works out to be a lot cheaper than MS Windows. I am not positive, but I believe that one can upgrade from OS/2 Warp which you can get fairly cheap on places like eBay.
Yes, you can. I have one Warp 4 license I’ve already converted, and if the GA release of eCS 2.0 is promising enough I have two or three more I’ll be converting later on.
Since many mainstream Linux desktop variants are becoming such hardware pigs, I find those distros are becoming less and less interesting to me over time.
Maybe I’ll start playing with the BSDs or Solaris again.
No I really do not believe that Win-eCS is a license problem – AFAIR Win3.1 today is the property of IBM.
What? I’m pretty sure Win3.1 is not the property of IBM, that’s just crazy talk.
Regardless of who owns or does not own Windows 3.1, the fact remains that SSI (makers of eComStation) does not have to pay any royalties for it at this point in time.
See this posting in comp.os.os2.advocacy:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.os2.advocacy/browse_frm/thre…
dated May 23 2001:
“This royalty thing is taking on a life of its own … and getting muddled in the
process. David Frank made his point that SS/IBM pays and MS royalty of $25 for
each copy of eCS because of the WinOS2 .. which he called the only useful
feature of OS/2.
Steven tried to clear this up with a bunch of other stuff about other royalties.
That didn’t really help. The MS – IBM agreement allowed the Win3.1 royalties to
expire because neither company felt the would have much value as the Win32 OSs
came out. That’s all.
IBM still pays royalties for HPFS386 .. which is why that product is an option
for WSeb and not in the base product. Sweeping statement about these agreements
have to be incorrect because there are multiple agreements with differing
products, terms, and conditions.
eCS pays no MS royalties .. unless we go the route of offering HPFS386 as an
optional feature. This is not to say there is not MS code in there .. there is
MS code in OS/2. And not just IBM and MS. There is code from other companies and
individuals. Some of which no longer exist .. which is one of the show stoppers
about letting OS/2 become open sourced. Even if the MS – IBM stuff were resolved
.. and both companies endorse open source of OS/2 .. the lawyers would still
stop it until the code of all parties was addressed.
What I really don’t understand is .. so what? Who really cares? I’m glad I don’t
have to pay those royalties because that would be an expense I would have to
pass along. Now … I don’t.
Regards,
Bob St.John
Serenity Systems”
Edited 2007-11-05 20:56