-0400
(74.101.171.114)
2017 15:03:46 -0400
str=0001.0A020206.59B04680.0149,ss=1,re=0.000,recu=0.000,reip=0.000,cl=1,cld=1,
fgs=0
different!
++ From the VOICE OS/2-eCS News Service   http://www.os2voice.org ++ 

From: newsDESPAM@DESPAMnetlabs.org

On September 6th 1997 I registered the domain http://netlabs.org so it is
officially the 20iest anniversary of http://netlabs.org! I was quite sure I did
 write a few words 10 years ago and indeed I did, see my old post
http://blog.netlabs.org/?p=37> in this blog. I have a nice history in there
about how and why I started http://netlabs.org so if you are curious about that
 then just go ahead and read this post, I will wait here! Unfortunately the
screenshots of the old website are gone, have to see if I still keep them
somewhere. http://Archive.org has some links as well but lacks the images, see
for example the first snapshot in 1998
http://web.archive.org/web/19981111191630/htt...  

I will try to assemble a few pictures and stories about http://netlabs.org for
a session I do at Warpstock 2017
http://www.warpstock.org/staticpages/index.ph...
Unfortunately I can't attend so I will only do a retrospective via Skype. I
also plan to publish the slides and pictures I create to the public so you can
enjoy a selection of old pictures from various events I participated at.  

I'm very happy that after 20 years, http://netlabs.org and the legacy of OS/2
is still a thing. Sure, the really active times are over but I wouldn't have
thought for a second that the site would be still up in 20 years from when I
started it. It was barely an idea back then and open source software didn't
play an important role anywhere yet, let alone on IBMs OS/2. The world was
proprietary and so was our beloved operating system.  

http://netlabs.org worked because we were young and naive and we thought
nothing could stop us. That actually worked remarkably well for quite a while
and looking back at these 20 years I have to say that I really enjoyed the
journey, especially the earlier (and more active) years. I met so many great
and remarkable people, many of them became friends, even though I have to admit
 that except Bart and Robert I don't see most of you anymore on a regular base,
 if at all.  

When we started http://netlabs.org there were no platforms like Sourceforge or
Github. We started with a simple webserver, some http & ftp space and later
with a heroic CVS server and client
http://trac.netlabs.org/nosa/wiki/NOSA%20Proj... on OS/2,
maintained by Christian Langanke. We were always a relatively small community
with a focus on Europe, at least for the more active part. Looking back I think
 that was part of our success. It was relatively easy to travel and meet each
other one, two or three times a year. I was a student back then and didn't had
much money but I always figured out some way to visit Warpstock Europe,
organize the OS/2 Developer Workshop with Robert Henschel and go snowboarding
in the Swiss or French alps with Bart, Knut, Christian, Chris, Sander, Fonz and
 some other friends from the scene.  

Warpstock Europe was probably the most important event for http://netlabs.org,
I don't think we would have managed to keep the core contributors active that
long without it. It was always a special privilege to meet Daniela, Ulrich,
Sander, Knut, Achim, Yuri and all the other great and smart programmers and
interact with users that were very happy and grateful for the work we all did.
I'm also happy to see that many users are still active, lead by Roderick and
many others around the VOICE organization.  

Warpstock USA was unfortunately an event I only visited once in Philadelphia, I
 think it was in 2000. I remember that we drove there with Ulrich M├╢ller by
car from Manhattan. We had the (in retrospect) incredibly stupid idea to meet
in front of grand central station, back in the days where mobile phones were a)
 expensive and b) European GSM models not working in the US. But it was great
fun and I still remember many details of that road trip (will have to dig out
some old pictures for the presentation)!  

Around 10 years ago we started pushing the Voyager project, see some old posts
in the blog http://blog.netlabs.org/?cat=6> and a presentation I did
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/voyager/ALL06_netla... at the first
http://netlabs.org developers workshop in Dresden in 2005. Looking back I have
to admit that we were both incredibly smart in analyzing what was wrong and
incredibly naive in thinking that our tiny active community could fix this.
Some parts that were presented one year later in Biel went into the direction
of what we now have on Linux with Wayland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland_(displa... Just that
they started around 3 years later and it took them years to get it on a level
where it got integrated on Linux distributions. And surely enough we had some
additional ambitious goals at the same time, as you can see in the
presentation. Including rewriting WPS http://trac.netlabs.org/v_desktop> from
scratch on a new architecture http://trac.ne
 tlabs.org/
v_nom>.  

What I probably never talked about in public is that we tried to get the OS/2
Warp for Power PC source code for a while, and/or the one from PM & WPS. It was
 such a frustrating journey that I probably forgot half of the details but long
 story short was that sources within the company told me that IBM lost most of
the WPS source (IIRC parts of PM too) and no one felt like investing a dime
searching for it and the PPC source they didn't want to release because
apparently Microsoft still had something to say regarding code ownership.
Problem was that so many good people within IBM got burned because they
believed in OS/2 that in the end really no one wanted to have anything to do
with it. All I got in the end was a signed copy of The Design of OS/2
https://archive.org/details/DesignOfOS2> by Michael Kogan (still a great read
by the way). I could also sense the amount of frustration he collected while
working on OS/2 within IBM. What a shame...  

Anyway let the past be the past. I'm glad that we have projects like Arca Noae
and ArcaOS https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/>, many great long-time
http://netlabs.org contributors and programmers are working and/or contributing
 to it and they still actively support me with my work for http://netlabs.org,
thanks Lewis and Team! I have to replace the http://netlabs.org hardware from
time to time to make sure services are running properly. In fact I will have to
 replace the by now 5 year old box again so I need to find 2'500Γé¼ for new
hardware. If you feel like giving a gift, consider buying some sponsoring units
 https://www.arcanoae.com/shop/netlabs/> or contact me directly
ktk(at)netlabs.org>. I can assure you that 100% of that money will go into new
hardware! By the way the server was and is hosted at n@work
https://www.work.de/> in Hamburg, Germany. Their team is also incredible
generous and friendly, thanks Rudiger & team! 

I would also be interested to know how http://netlabs.org can help and should
look like for the coming years. I have some ideas around creating a new
platform for managing the community. It should be better than forum software,
as nice as newsgroups were back then but more modern and easy to use on mobile
devices as well. Github and related platforms do a great job for programmers
but I think there is still something missing for managing contributors which do
 not or cannot contribute code. And in my opinion we did hit that sweet spot
with http://netlabs.org for a while so I wonder how to repeat that today.
Again, if you have ideas, let me know ktk(at)netlabs.org> or comment on this
post!  

Last but not least thanks to everyone I did not mention by name, I've met so
many great people in the past years I cannot list you all. If you have a nice
http://netlabs.org related story on your own, let me know!  

Last but not least I want to mention one of the most active users, it was and
is Jan van der Heide. He still writes 99.9% of all posts in this blog, only
because of his bi-weekly work you get regular condensed updates about what is
going on in the SVN/TRAC repositories at http://netlabs.org, thanks a lot Jan! 
 


http://Netlabs.org http://netlabs.org/> depends upon your support to maintain
and help test new releases of OS/2 software. Some projects require considerable
 work; therefore, some developers are paid to work on them. You may show your
support for these projects by purchasing SPONSOR units via:
bww bitwise Works GmbH
http://www.bitwiseworks.com/shop/index.php?id...
d_lang=1> on Twitter @bitwiseworks
or
Arca Noae http://arcanoae.com/product-category/support-... on Twitter
@arcanoaellc  

Thanks for your support!  

We can be reached at: mailto://news@netlabs.org news(at)netlabs.org> or Twitter
 at: http://twitter.com/#!/netlabsorg

Greetings,
http://netlabs.org http://www.netlabs.org/> team
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