Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!deimos.cis.ksu.edu!cveg!hcx!jms
From: jms@hcx.uucp (Michael Stanley)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ZOO
Message-ID: <2571@cveg.uucp>
Date: 13 Jun 89 03:58:35 GMT
References: <999@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <120800003@silver> <7525@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <2304@uwovax.uwo.ca>
Sender: netnews@cveg.uucp
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Lines: 24


In article <2304@uwovax.uwo.ca>, 16012_3045@uwovax.uwo.ca (Paul Gomme) writes:
> 
> At the risk of initiating a dispute which I suspect neither of us is able to
> settle, I suspect that the courts have not, in fact, said that SEA owns the ARC
> format.  There was no judgement, and so the courts cannot have made a decision.

Ah come on.  Lets not nitpick!  It doesn't matter EXACTLY what the courts
decide, the MEANING behind the man's original statement was that WE can't
write programs which can access ARC format archives without SEA's permission.

On the other hand, this is not true for zoo.  With zoo we (or someone else)
are free to write a zoo archive program on ANY system any time we feel like
it.  This means that there is a greater liklihood of finding zoo available
on a greater variety of operating systems in the future (assuming zoo catches
on).

And finally, I don't really care which archive program we use.  Downloading
software is always a pain even if you have command/batch/shell-script files
to handle most of the job for you.  I doubt we'll ever find an answer that 
will satisfy all of us.

	Michael
	jms@hcx.uucp