OpenWatcom web server - is it coming back?

[Michael Brutman]

I'm a big fan of OpenWatcom, and I use the 1.9 C/C++ compiler for a large project. I've noticed that the web server has been down for months, and I can't find any contact information in archived versions of the home page.

Does anybody know what is going on? Will be be coming back? Are there any possible contacts that need to be alerted?


-Mike

[Paul S Person]

It's in hurricane country, so it does have a tendency to go down in
bad weather, but it has been gone a long time now. I did email the
person entrusted with it some time back, but got no response.

I want to see if anyone else is following this newgroup. Are there any
plans to get us going again?
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

[Lynn McGuire]

The Watcom v1.9 F77 compiler does not work with the Watcom Debugger
under Windows 10 x64. Works ok under Windows 7 x64. So I maintain two
computers in my office for the time being.

We are in the process of moving to a Win64 compiler.

Lynn

[Dave Yeo]

Michael Brutman wrote:
>
> I'm a big fan of OpenWatcom, and I use the 1.9 C/C++ compiler for a large project. I've noticed that the web server has been down for months, and I can't find any contact information in archived versions of the home page.
>
> Does anybody know what is going on? Will be be coming back? Are there any possible contacts that need to be alerted?
>

Seems that Perforce decided not to continue providing a license for
free, I think they were hosting the newsgroups and web page as well.
The latest source is at https://github.com/StevenLevine/openwatcom-v1
and a build from the latest sources at
ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/open-watcom-c-os2-2.0-beta-4.exe,
though I believe it is the OS/2 installer.
Dave
ps. slightly offtopic. Latest 4os2 source at
https://github.com/StevenLevine/4os2

[Paul S Person]

On Mon, 9 Jan 2023 13:05:47 -0800, Dave Yeo <dave....@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Michael Brutman wrote:
>>
>> I'm a big fan of OpenWatcom, and I use the 1.9 C/C++ compiler for a large project. I've noticed that the web server has been down for months, and I can't find any contact information in archived versions of the home page.
>>
>> Does anybody know what is going on? Will be be coming back? Are there any possible contacts that need to be alerted?
>>
>
>Seems that Perforce decided not to continue providing a license for
>free, I think they were hosting the newsgroups and web page as well.

At one time they were paying for a server [1]. But that changed, OW
moved to someone's local server [1], but licenses continued to be
provided.

As to Perforce -- they may have lost interest in OW, or in supporting
open-source in general, or the pandemic may have had an impact on
their operations, particularly those that don't produce income.

[1] The original server, as I understand it, was housed with a large
number of other servers owned by company that rented them out.
Perforce paid the rent. The new server is someone's property,
connected from that person's home or office. We were waiting for a new
license when the server disappeared. But there was a lot of weather
(hurricanes, snow storms, other storms, floods) which may have
impacted the ISP and so the internet connection.

>The latest source is at https://github.com/StevenLevine/openwatcom-v1
>and a build from the latest sources at
>ftp://ftp.netlabs.org/pub/openwatcom/open-watcom-c-os2-2.0-beta-4.exe,
>though I believe it is the OS/2 installer.
>Dave
>ps. slightly offtopic. Latest 4os2 source at
>https://github.com/StevenLevine/4os2

[Michael Brutman]

My interest is in making sure that OpenWatcom has some sort of official presence on the Internet. Right now it is a well-kept secret that is fading into obscurity.

I'm thinking of mirroring the downloads and source code that I have now on my own personal web site. It doesn't make much sense for me to refer people to the OpenWatcom web site when it's down for months at a time.

Is there anything that can be done to help get it up and running again?


-Mike

[Paul S Person]

I have no idea. Those who (hopefully) would know don't appear to be
posting here. Which is part of the problem.

That we get time-outs rather than "name not found" errors suggests
that someone, at some level, is doing something. Or did enough
recently enough to keep the DNS entry active.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 1/7/2023 4:23 PM, Michael Brutman wrote:
>

Jiri Malek is working on a 64 bit capable version of Open Watcom 2.0. I
am not sure what the status is.
https://github.com/open-watcom/open-watcom-v2

Lynn

[Michael Brutman]

Let's try to stay on topic ...

I'd really like to offer help on getting the official home page online again. I'd also consider it a loss if the perforce version history was lost. I looked at older, archived versions of the home page and I did not find any contact information. Is there anybody I can reach out to?

[Paul S Person]

And today ... it's back. Not in all its glory, but still ... it's
encouraging.

The download and some mirror links are given.

[Lynn McGuire]

On 1/17/2023 11:19 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jan 2023 16:43:04 -0800 (PST), Michael Brutman
> <mbbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Let's try to stay on topic ...
>>
>> I'd really like to offer help on getting the official home page online again. I'd also consider it a loss if the perforce version history was lost. I looked at older, archived versions of the home page and I did not find any contact information. Is there anybody I can reach out to?
>
> And today ... it's back. Not in all its glory, but still ... it's
> encouraging.
>
> The download and some mirror links are given.

Congrats !

https://openwatcom.org/

Lynn

[Michael Brutman]

I'm glad to see it back, even in it's current minimalist form. It is an underappreciated resource.


-Mike