Tag Archives: software

How ArcaOS 5.0 licensing fits together with existing subscriptions

You’ve probably heard us discuss this topic in the abstract at Warpstock events over the past year or so. As we count down the final days to ArcaOS 5.0 release, considering how the purchase of an ArcaOS 5.0 license may – entirely at the option of the licensee – either work alongside or replace an existing Drivers & Software subscription, we thought a brief discussion was in order.

What’s included with ArcaOS 5.0 in terms of support and maintenance

ArcaOS 5.0 licensing includes either 6 or 12 months of technical support and drivers & software updates, depending upon whether the personal or commercial edition is licensed. Technical support includes the ability to open support tickets in the Arca Noae Mantis bug tracker, as well as telephone support (as available). Much of the driver & software update content overlaps with the existing Drivers & Software subscription, but licensed exclusively for use with ArcaOS. Support, however, is extended to include the entire operating system, and not just the drivers and software components distributed as updates.

ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition licensing includes 6 months of support and maintenance. ArcaOS 5.0 commercial edition, on the other hand, includes a full 12 months of support and maintenance, with priority technical support (these tickets are handled first).

What to do with an existing Drivers & Software subscription

There are really two options:

Keep it in force for one or more existing OS/2 or eComStation systems (as noted, drivers & software distributed as part of the ArcaOS support subscription are not licensed for use on non-ArcaOS systems), with an eye toward the changing licensing scheme for personal subscriptions (see below); or
Convert the remaining period to a credit against the cost of ArcaOS licensing. This can be done by completing an online form and submitting it to Arca Noae. We will issue a rebate, coupon, or credit to your account for the value of any whole or fractional months remaining on your subscription.Example:
You just renewed your personal subscription April 1 for $44.10, and on May 10, you purchase an ArcaOS 5.0 Personal Edition license for the introductory price of $99. You complete the online form, answering a few non-personal questions, and submit it. Arca Noae credits your account $40.23 (the value of 11 months remaining on your previously renewed subscription).The trade-off is that while any non-ArcaOS systems may continue to use whatever subscription content had already been installed on them prior to the point of subscription conversion, no new subscription content is licensed for use on these systems.

How the existing Drivers & Software subscription licensing scheme is changing

To better align the terms of the Drivers & Software personal edition with those of ArcaOS 5.0 personal edition, any subscriptions purchased or renewed after the official launch of ArcaOS 5.0 will be limited to one installed system, and no longer metered to cover an entire household. Thus, one subscription will be required for every system benefiting from the updated software and related support.

In keeping with Arca Noae’s commitment to fair use, any driver and/or software updates obtained prior to this change in licensing scheme are fully licensed for use on all systems where they were previously licensed.

How to handle a mix of ArcaOS and OS/2 or eComStation installations

There will be valid reasons for not replacing all existing OS/2 or eComStation installations with ArcaOS. ArcaOS does not provide extensive support for ISA or MicroChannel hardware, for example. Other reasons also exist. Our recommendation for such systems is to maintain a Drivers & Software subscription for each one, alongside a support subscription for each ArcaOS installation. Only in this manner can you be assured that you are always using the latest, fully supported drivers and software on all of your OS/2 systems.

How the ArcaOS support subscription will be handled when ArcaOS 5.1 is released

ArcaOS 5.1 is already in the planning stages, as are incremental updates to ArcaOS 5.0 (incremental updates to 5.0 will be included as part of the 5.0 support and maintenance subscription content). An ArcaOS support subscription is version-less, meaning that a subscription purchased six months after the purchase of an ArcaOS 5.0 license and still in effect when upgrading to ArcaOS 5.1 will extend the included support in the 5.1 upgrade license. Also, should you choose to stay with ArcaOS 5.0 and not upgrade to 5.1, your investment in 5.0 is protected, because Arca Noae fully expects to support ArcaOS 5.0 for some time after 5.1 and later versions are released.

Blue Lion moves into beta testing

Per Arca Noae’s revised release schedule, and as announced at Warpstock 2016, Blue Lion (ArcaOS 5.0) moved into beta testing stage today. The first beta release has been made available to the test team, and we anticipate a rigorous round of installation, modifications, formatting, deletion, disk wiping, and all that other fun stuff which accompanies a healthy beta test.

We do not anticipate a public beta cycle nor are we planning a gamma release or an untold number of release candidates. Instead, we fully expect ArcaOS 5.0 to emerge from beta testing at the end of March and to become generally available at that time.

We wish to thank our loyal supporters, our beta testers, and our development team for their dedication to the Blue Lion project, and look forward to the next 60 days as we ready the next release of OS/2.

Pricing will be made available in the near future. Expect two tiers, much like our subscription service (Personal and Commercial), with the latter including prioritized support and a longer bundled maintenance period. Volume discounts will also be available.

Current release timetable for ArcaOS 5.0 (Blue Lion)

As announced at Warpstock 2016, ArcaOS 5.0 (codenamed Blue Lion) is currently scheduled for general availability March 31, 2017.

The movement into 2017 was necessary to ensure a finished product with the slate of planned features, including:

New XWorkplace (just released) with ArcaOS exclusive branding and features (e.g., the new Arca Noae Removable Device widget);
New desktop productivity apps, including DVD Tools, Archive Tool, Dynamic Icons, ArcaBar, Lucide Document Viewer, and much more;
New network filesystem connectivity;
New operating system kernel, with fixes and enhancements to better manage today’s larger applications, including Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and Apache OpenOffice;
New kernel loader to address shortcomings in IBM’s last version, and to provide some useful new features, such as use of installed system memory above 4GB as a RAM disk;
New installer, completely built from the ground up for ArcaOS;
New installation options, better suited to today’s systems, both bare metal and virtual;
Integration of latest RPM-provided content;
Integration of latest Arca Noae device drivers;
Updated SNAP accelerated video driver;
Much, much more…

The above list is not final, nor are all components assured to be in the release of ArcaOS 5.0, but they have been in the plan and in the works for some time.

We know that everyone is anxious for this release, and we share your enthusiasm! All we ask is that you bear with us a little while longer while we get things fully assembled and tested to better assure a smooth installation and operating experience.

Many happy returns of the season from the team at Arca Noae, and best wishes for a truly bright 2017!

How’s your NetDrive?

NetDrive for OS/2 is an essential connectivity tool for OS/2 and derivative operating systems, including eComStation. This week, NetDrive 3.1.5 has been released, addressing a couple minor issues and enabling the use of the updated plugin for SFTP connections, now available from the Arca Noae store. NetDrive 3.1.5 is a free upgrade for existing NetDrive 3 licensees.

You may purchase new or additional licenses for NetDrive and a number of commercial plugins from our store.

Arca Noae’s support of open source projects: Ports and more by bww bitwise works GmbH

Following our last installment in this series which focused on Arca Noae’s commitment to Firefox development, we thought that pulling back the focus a little to give a broader perspective might be a good idea.

Development of various open source ports by our strategic partner, bww bitwise works, GmbH, enables building Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and many, many other modern and useful applications and components. While the Ports project is hosted at Netlabs, the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by bww bitwise works, with the resulting work product made available free of charge to everyone.

These packages are installable via YUM and RPM at the command line or via the free, easy-to-use, native OS/2 Arca Noae Package Manager (ANPM), straight from the OS/2 desktop.

Similarly, the Samba for OS/2 and OS/2-based systems project allows OS/2 to stay connected to the rest of the world – all for free, and this is just one more example of the great things this team is doing.

Sponsoring this critical work helps to ensure that new releases of Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, and other cutting edge technologies are available on OS/2. If you utilize any of these technologies, and wish to see new ports, continuing maintenance for existing ports, or just want to say “thanks,” please visit our store and sponsor them.

Arca Noae needs your help

In order to make the installation of Blue Lion as smooth and intuitive as possible, we need to update and maintain an extensive database of hardware we are likely to encounter during installation and the drivers associated with the various devices installed in current machines.

Luckily, during the installation of eComStation, a file is created: MACHINE.CFG, stored in <boot drive>\ecs\install\rsp. This file contains all of the relevant data we need to update our current database.

We are asking for community assistance to gather as many MACHINE.CFG files as possible. If you have installed eComStation systems, please attach the MACHINE.CFG file from each one to an email (you may attach multiple files to a single email or send separate ones) addressed to hardware-info at arcanoae dot com. This file should not contain any personally identifiable information, but to be sure, please review before attaching.

Many thanks from the Blue Lion Dev Team for your assistance!

Arca Noae’s support of open source projects: Firefox

Did you know that Arca Noae provides ongoing funding for continued Firefox development and maintenance on the OS/2 platform? Firefox development by our strategic partner, bww bitwise works, GmbH, enables building Thunderbird and SeaMonkey, too, as well as many ancillary components which are used by other programs, so like the space program, there are other technologies which grow out of this work and allow OS/2 users to get more out of their investment.

Sponsoring this important work helps to ensure that new releases of Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey are available to all. The Mozilla for OS/2 Project aims to keep relatively close to the official Extended Support Release (ESR) cycle for Firefox as outlined by Mozilla, with additional components released as they are ported and/or developed along the way.

Blue Lion in the news

It’s happened again… We’ve been slashdotted…

It all started when James Sanders wrote this piece in Tech Republic, which among other bits of Blue Lion news, correctly reported the official product name of Blue Lion as ArcaOS 5.0.

As was to be expected, this news took on a life of its own, and pretty soon, we were slashdotted.

Try a quick web search for “ArcaOS 5.0” and you’ll see what we mean…

Some of the comments which follow these articles can be quite humorous. Many people have fond memories of OS/2 (2.0? 3?), but have never had an opportunity to run it on modern hardware or even on a gigabit LAN, nor have they had the experience of running modern software on the platform, such as Firefox 38.8.0 ESR or Apache OpenOffice 4.1.2. (Both of these current applications have been ported and made possible on the OS/2 platform by our good friends and strategic partners, bww bitwise works, GmbH. You may find more great stuff from bitwise in our store.) For those of you who do take the time to post and respond in these venues, our heartfelt thanks for updating some of the users who seem a little out of step.

Of course, there are some great comments by well-respected people in the tech arena, like Brian Proffit and Brian J Dooley (thanks, guys).

Whatever your preferred language, enjoy the read, and be sure to add your own comments, including your more recent experience with OS/2 and the difference modern drivers and software make.

Who’s speaking at Warpstock Europe?

There will be plenty of information on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event. Here’s a sampling of what to expect from Arca Noae:

Saturday, David Azarewicz will be presenting on device driver progress and plans for the future (Blue Lion will be a milestone, but not the end of the road, by any means).

Also on Saturday, Lewis Rosenthal will be discussing what to expect in the Blue Lion package. While all of the details have not been set, we have a pretty good idea of what will be included.

Later in the afternoon, Steven Levine will pick up on Arca Noae SNAP. Learn what is coming next for this accelerated video driver.

We will return on Sunday with an update on YUM and RPM and how these technologies play an important role in Blue Lion by Lewis Rosenthal, as well as future plans for the well-received Arca Noae Package Manager.

Arca Noae’s last presentation on Sunday will be from Alex Taylor via Skype, discussing printing and fonts.

Between Arca Noae staff and the other presenters, there should be something for everyone. Arca Noae is the exclusive source for Warpstock Europe tickets. If you haven’t yet purchased your tickets, please visit our store today.

Arca Noae at Warpstock Europe 2016

Arca Noae principals David Azarewicz and Lewis Rosenthal will be on hand at this year’s Warpstock Europe event to discuss some of the great offerings from Arca Noae, including latest driver development and the upcoming Blue Lion release.

Expect more details in the coming days, and be sure to visit the event page for general information and the Arca Noae store to register and purchase your tickets.