Editing IBM System Object Model (section)

==Fading away==
{{Original research|section|date=July 2013}}With the "death" of OS/2 in the mid-1990s, the ''[[wikt:raison d'être|raison d'être]]'' for SOM/DSOM largely disappeared; if users would not be running OS/2 on the desktop, there would be no universal object library anyway. In 1997, when [[Steve Jobs]] returned to Apple and ended many development efforts including [[Copland (operating system)|Copland]] and [[OpenDoc]], SOM was replaced with [[Objective-C]] already being in use in [[OPENSTEP]] (to become Mac OS X later). SOM/DSOM development faded, and is no longer actively developed, although it continues to be included and used in OS/2-based systems such as [[ArcaOS]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.edm2.com/index.php/List_of_ArcaOS_5.0_WPS_Classes|title=List of ArcaOS 5.0 WPS Classes|access-date=2020-09-03}}</ref>

Despite effective death of OS/2 and OpenDoc, SOM could have yet another niche: Windows and [[cross-platform]] development. SOM 3.0 for WinNT was generally available in December 1996. The reasons for not advancing in these directions go beyond market adoption problems. They involve opportunities missed by [[IBM]],<ref>[http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Lost_in_the_Garden Lost in the Garden] by Roger Sessions (August 1996)</ref> and destructive incompatible changes:
* The first version of VisualAge C++ for Windows was 3.5. It was the first and the last version to support SOM. It had SOM 2.1 bundled in and Direct-to-SOM support in the compiler. Versions 3.6.5 and later had no trace of SOM.
* SOMobjects largely relied on [[makefile]]s. VisualAge C++ 4.0 introduced .icc projects and removed icc.exe and ilink.exe command line compiler and linker from supply. It is impossible to build any SOM DTK sample out of box with VAC++ 4.0. VisualAge C++ comes with its own samples, but there are no .icc SOM samples even in VAC++ 4.0 for OS/2. vacbld.exe, the only command line compilation tool, doesn't support SOM.
* VisualAge C++ bundled-in Object Component Library (OCL) was not based on SOM. It was probably meant to be ported to SOM using C++ Direct-to-SOM mode, but in VAC v3.6.5 this mode was abandoned, and OCL has no SOM interface so far.
* Near the end of the 1990s, IBM shut down SOMobjects download sites and never put them back online. SOM 3.0 DTK for WinNT can't be found on IBM FTP, despite much other legacy stuff lying around freely. Despite general availability of SOM 3.0 for WinNT, it was nearly impossible to locate until the end of 2012.
* Finally, IBM never open-sourced SOM (as done to [[Object REXX]]), despite several articles<ref>[https://archive.today/20130215180753/http://blogs.cio.com/esther_schindler/a_little_som_thing Just a little SOM thing for Linux developers] by Esther Schindler (February 2008)</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7822082064.html|title=Reviving OS/2's best in the Linux desktop| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100417133157/http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7822082064.html |author=Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols|date=February 8, 2008|archive-date=2010-04-17}}</ref> and petitions.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070227095059/http://www.os2world.com/petition/ The OS/2 petition], second round (2007–2010)</ref>