Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: PKZip Amiga arrives
Message-ID: <1004@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 12 Jan 90 16:36:12 GMT
Lines: 50
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <258@estinc.UUCP>, fnf@estinc.UUCP (Fred Fish) writes:
>In article <1990Jan11.062433.27699@i-core.UUCP> pete@i-core.UUCP (Pete Ashdown) writes:
>>Just got PKAZip 1.0 today.  This is the full release of the Amiga PKZip and
>>it looks rather nice.  It supports compression as well as decompression
>>(unlike the prereleases) and it does do all the techniques supported by
>>MeSsy-DOS PKZip 1.02.
>
>Does it still have the distribution restriction of "NO FEE IS CHARGED FOR
>USE, COPYING, OR DISTRIBUTION" in the zip.license file?  If so, I guess
>it won't show up in any PD libraries.  This clause should also cause all
>pay-for-time online services to reject it from inclusion in their libraries,
>though I doubt that will happen.

Right. Given that wording, I doubt it will be excluded from 'pay-for-time'
online service libraries. You see, most pay-for-time online services are
exactly that; the payment is for time spent on the system, and not for any
particular part of that service's offerings, be they public messages, email,
real time conferencing, or data libraries. It's a subtle distinction, and one
that has caused much argument.

In fact, for a while, PLink was charging an extra fee for downloading files,
based upon the number of bytes transferred. They decided to drop the extra fee,
for reasons unknown to me, but while they were charging the fee, it was clear
(at least to me), that they were charging for distribution of particular data
files, regardless of restrctions to the contrary in those files.

My stand on the issue is that if an author wants to prevent his work from
appearing on a 'pay-for-time' network, he'd better make it clear in the
distribution restrictions. The author of Zoo, at one time, clearly spelled out
restrictions that indirectly prohibited distribution on Compuserve, and that
restriction was honoured. When he was convinced to change those restrictions,
Zoo was posted, and .ZOO files were allowed to appear in the data libraries.

>>I hope we can toss ARC and LHARC now (yeah sure....).
>
>Not till it's as freely available and distributable as zoo, at least in
>binary form...

And not until it has the ability to be used from scripts. I certainly won't use
it if I have to manually ZIP stuff.

-larry

--
"Cavett Emptor - Let the talk show host beware!" - Evan Marcus
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
| \X/    lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips |
|        COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322  -or-  76703.4322@compuserve.com        |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+