OS/2 loyalists remain as the operating system fades away

Computerworld - Neglected communities, be they small towns or virtual ecosystems, shrink and die in much the same way. Names and faces disappear, and real estate becomes empty.
In the physical world, over time, windows break, shingles tear off and loose items bang in the wind. Signs of atrophy appear more quickly in the virtual world. Web site links return the dreaded "Page cannot be found" screen, and the information that can be found is out of date and has clearly been neglected.
OS/2 user groups in the U.S. know neglect. They are diehards championing a doomed technology and maintaining their loyalty even as the operating system recedes from the IT landscape.
Most of the remaining physical user groups, as opposed to virtual organizations, are in Europe, where OS/2 still has a large presence, according to Mark Dodel, founding editor of the "VOICE Newsletter" for the OS/2 community.
A new cadre of younger OS/2 users in Europe, particularly in Germany, has started a small OS/2 renaissance as an alternative to Microsoft. And Dodel reports a rumor that a great deal of development for the old operating system is going on in Russia and Eastern Europe.
OS/2 users in North America tend to be older workers who learned to love the operating system when it was in business use. Most smaller OS/2 groups online have folded or morphed into multifaceted organizations encompassing alternatives to Microsoft, says Dodel.
About two years ago, Dodel heard from a source in IBM that there were about 10 million OS/2 licenses under active support. Sun Microsystems sees gold in the stranded OS/2 community, which it numbers at 20 million users. The company has unveiled Project Mad Hatter to sell Linux desktops to OS/2 users.
OS/2 aficionados have been gathering annually in the U.S. since 1997 at Warpstock, a nickname for OS/2 that was borrowed from a Star Trek character. Europe quickly added its own edition of Warpstock.
Warpstock's venue changes from year to year -- the event has been staged near Los Angeles and in Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Toronto, Austin, San Francisco and Denver so far -- to make it more accessible.
"Each event is bid on by a local team of volunteers," says Dodel. "The only IBM folks involved are doing so on their own time."
Attendance at Warpstock events in North America peaked at about 400 in 1998 in Chicago. Last year was the first time the event drew fewer than 100 attendees, with significantly less participation from Europe than in the past. "Global politics isn't