Xref: utzoo trial.misc.legal.software:24 gnu.misc.discuss:1357 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!shelby!helens!baroque!jim From: jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software,gnu.misc.discuss Subject: LZW and shareware wars Summary: This would make an interesting soap opera. Message-ID: Date: 1 Aug 90 19:57:37 GMT References: <1990Jul31.220935.1424@riacs.edu> Sender: news@helens.Stanford.EDU Organization: Stanford University Lines: 65 In-reply-to: jaw@riacs.edu's message of 31 Jul 90 22:09:35 GMT Back in February of 1989, Bob Lucky of AT&T gave a talk here (part of Allison's EE380 series) about data compression. Lucky concluded with a woolly tale of a bloody PC shareware war between Tom Henderson of New Jersey and Phil Katz of Wisconsin. I'd forgotten some of the details, so I reviewed the video tape. Lucky spins a good yarn. It's someplace between damn funny and tragic. The story reminds me of a cartoon with two little mice running around sniping at each other, and then the big mean cat comes in and kicks both their butts. With today's events, it seems the big cat is making his entrance, although how mean he is remains to be seen. From my notes of Lucky's talk: After Terry Welch wrote an easily understandable article for IEEE Computer in 1984, lots of people started writing LZW compression programs. One of them was Tom Henderson, who developed a shareware compress program called ARC based on LZW. ARC really took off, gaining widesread use, praise and shareware revenues. Then along comes one Phil Katz. He develops a version that runs about 10 X faster and calls it PKARC. Everyone starts using PKARC because it's so much faster. Henderson's income drops. He sues Katz (apparently based upon his trademark of the name ARC). Katz has no stomach for lawsuits and agrees to cease and desist. Henderson orders that all copies of PKARC be given up for destruction. Users, not wanting to go back to something 10X slower, rebel with comments such as "Like my GUN, they will have to pry PKARC from my cold, dead fingers!." [Perhaps he meant GNU? ;-> - jlh]. Katz has second thoughts and to get around the ARC trademark renames his program PKPACK. Henderson sues Katz for violating of the consent agreement. Henderson's growing unpopularity moves him into partial retreat. He makes ARC freely available for "all sentient beings in the universe" to use (except Phil Katz!) and states that ARC is available for royalty free incorporation into commercial products up to $100,00 profit, above that Henderson requested a 6.5% cut. He also agreed to maintain the ARC standard for the world and required that he be given full source code to any product which incorporated ARC compression!! Lucky's closing comments were: We [AT&T] apparently do have a patent on this [LZ], but nobody thinks it's worth anything.... I shouldn't say that, maybe some people do, I don't know. I don't know. But you want to know the bottom line, we bought a license, WE BOUGHT A LICENSE, from Tom Henderson. [Audience Laughter] Q. One wonders if Henderson can afford the legal fees either. Lucky: Well you see he's playing. He may be bluffing. He's playing poker. He threatens you with a suit. He may or may not have legality on his side. But it's a very powerful threat. So powerful that AT&T bought a license!. The battle was still raging when Lucky gave his talk last year. Does anyone know what's happened since to Henderson|Katz|ARC|PKARC|PKPACK? Jim Helman Department of Applied Physics Durand 012 Stanford University FAX: (415) 725-3377 (jim@KAOS.stanford.edu) Voice: (415) 723-9127