++ From the VOICE OS/2-eCS News Service   http://www.os2voice.org ++ 

From: newsDESPAM{at}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/http://www.netlabs.org:80/>.  

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.php?page=ws2017_sessions>.
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%20Project%20Information> 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 Möller 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_netlabs_org.pdf> 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_(display_server_protocol)>. 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 2'500€ 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{at}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_category=11&controller=category&id_lang=1>
on Twitter {at}bitwiseworks
or
Arca Noae http://arcanoae.com/product-category/support-sponsoring/> on
Twitter {at}arcanoaellc  

Thanks for your support!  

We can be reached at: mailto://news{at}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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