Rabid developers and other fans of IBM’s OS/2 refuse to let the legendary operating system die.In the wake of IBM declaring that it is dropping support for it, over 11,000 people have signed a petition now up on the OS/2 World Web site asking the company to open source portions of it, if not the entire operating system. Supporters of the petition argue that in so doing the company’s long-suffering user and development communities can continue to be well served.“Customers that are willing to continue using OS/2 will get the benefits of an open OS that will be continuously developed by individual developers and/or software companies, their ownership fees will decrease and they will have the enhanced security of an OS that will continue to be relevant due to the open-ended nature of open source (following the BSD and Linux examples),” according to the petition. Petitioners admit there are a number of legal barriers to overcome for IBM to release the code, but are asking that the company “release as much of the source as possible” and to list the OS/2 components that need an open source replacement. With a list of components that need to be replaced, interested companies could create open source software that would fill in the “holes,” according to the petition.The prospect of IBM releasing any code however appears dim given the legal entanglements involving third parties who have contributed to OS/2 over the years and the associated expenses.“It’s an expensive proposition given the intellectual property involved as well as the prospect of distracting anyone from Linux,” according to an IBM spokesman. Technology Industry