Well we OS/2 users certainly live in interesting times. Not much surprises me
anymore. But 32bitsonline started a bit of a row when they sent out a message that
Warpstock was canceled. Gave me quite a fright I must say. Then in the article (
http://www.32bitsonline.com/Issues/june98/Chicago_Interview.shtm
) they say that what they really meant was that 3 members of the Chicago organizing
committee had resigned. Certainly not a pleasant event, but not the end of the great
OS/2 end-user gathering either. In fact this event seems to have become a catalyst
to propel the growing legion of volunteers to work harder to make this an even better
Warpstock than last year.
So Warpstock has not been canceled and many members of VOICE (as well as OS/2
users from all over the world) are looking forward to meeting each other in person
for the first time. VOICE will have a table at Warpstock and we are looking to sign
up new members, so beware. :-) Perhaps next year we can all meet at the Warpstock
Europe second annual event - http://www.buntspecht.de/warpstock/en/warpstock_en.html
:-))))
Things have really begun to come together for VOICE in the past few months. We
say welcome to a a lot of new members. Because of the conflicting pressures of an
expanding organization and a demanding job, David Both has chosen to resign as President
of VOICE, and Dan Casey has assumed that role. David will remain on the VOICE Board
of Directors as a Technical Advisor. The VOICE Board is working on a lot of interesting
projects, and we are lining up a number of software discounts (for members only
;-). http://www.os2voice.org/info_for_members.html
Speaking of interesting events, I finally received a reply from the US Department
of Justice to the letter I sent them several weeks ago. You can see the letter in
the Letters, Addendum, Errata section of the Newsletter.
A genuine letter, not what I'm used to from IBM and the like. Even signed by Joel
Klein himself. Mr. Klein simply said that my 'correspondence has been forwarded
to Christopher Crook, Chief of the Division's San Francisco field Office, for further
review.'
If you'd like your own personally autographed letter from Assistant Attorney
General Joel I. Klein, then do what I did. Send a letter detailing your experiences
with IBM's anti-competitive, Microsoft only policy to:
Joel I. Klein
Assistant Attorney General
Antitrust Division
U.S. Department of Justice
601 D Street, NW
Washington, DC 20530
The email address is antitrust@justice.usdoj.gov,
but I doubt Mr. Klein sends back a signed response.
And on the topic of IBM's anti-OS/2 policy, Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader has
sent a letter to Lou Gerstner ( http://www.essential.org/antitrust/ms/lvgjun8.html
) asking big Lou to 'stop forcing customers who buy IBM personal computers to purchase
Microsoft Windows.' He goes on to say that 'Millions of OS/2 users are bitterly
disappointed at IBM's failure to promote and improve the OS/2 platform as an alternative
to Microsoft Windows.' Boy he's got that right. Finally he asks that IBM consider
releasing the source for OS/2 and allow free distribution. WooHoo. Chalk a big one
up for the forces against the evil empire. Do you suppose that Mr. Nader receives
a form letter reply to his missive? So folks let's send a big OS/2 thank you to
Mr. Nader (ralph@essential.org) and to
Mary Jo Foley (mary_foley@zd.com) who broke
the story on ZDnet ( http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/0,3440,2110597,00.html
).
Speaking of form letters, I heard recently from John Stenson of IBM's Network
Computing Software division. John is the poor soul I have been directing readers
to send email to, to tell IBM what OS/2 users think of IBM's anti-OS/2 policy. In
my past interactions with John on the phone and via email I have found him to be
sympathetic to OS/2 users and an OS/2 user himself. So if you do write to John please
be polite. John apologizes for the use of form letters (especially when he sends
out the wrong one, right John?), but says that there is no other way he can keep
up with all the mail from OS/2 users. He tries to personally contact anyone with
a new or unique problem. John passes on all the information he receives to management.
If you would like to let IBM know that you want them to support OS/2 or perhaps
just to say hello to John send an email to:
John Stenson ssadm281@us.ibm.com
Network Computing Software
Finally if you want to let Lou Gerstner's office know how you feel you can do
so by pointing your favorite web browser to http://www.ibm.com/cgi-bin/email-lvg.pl
You'll probably then get a response from someone in John's office anyway, so I'm
not sure what difference it makes.
Mark Dodel
Editor, VOICE Newsletter
editor@os2voice.org