Steven Thompson wrote in a message to Jack Stein:

 ST> 22 Sep 99 08:56, you wrote to Frits Spieker:

 JS> How about an alternative OS/2 OS?  Wouldn't that be neat?  Sort of the
 JS> OS/2 version of LINUX.  Oh, and never say never!

 ST> Something tells me that IBM wouldn't allow it...  

Not that they would necessarily have a choice in the matter.

 ST> Number one, to run OS/2 programs, it would have to be licensed 
 ST> by IBM, 

Unless something which functioned as such were to be reverse-engineered.  This 
is what nailed IBM when it came to "clone" hardware and the BIOS software
needed to support it.

 ST> and also, you wouldn't be able to call it OS/2.

True.

 ST> IBM may not care about OS/2, but that doesn't mean they won't 
 ST> protect their trademarks.

Yeah,  but that isn't really what's going to determine the outcome of this --
only one thing is,  and that's whether or not there's sufficient interest in
such a thing to have enough people get involved in the effort to bring it
about.

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