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From: lowey@herald.usask.ca (Kevin Lowey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Why do people pirate software?
Message-ID: <1990Aug18.211128.2205@herald.usask.ca>
Date: 18 Aug 90 21:11:28 GMT
References: <32794@cup.portal.com>
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
Lines: 32

>   I agree, ZIP is much better [and I hope SEA is badly hurt by it too! :) ]
> 
>>Using 'ARC' is only illegal if your 'ARC' file is not compatible with the
>>'ARC' utility from SEA.  It seems simple enough to get SEA's approval, 
>>though I dislike having to give SEA any source code.
> 
>    Seems a perfect reason to not have copyrights to me.  This is the same 
> as saying I I can't play PREPPIE because it is a takeoff of PACMAN.


  I am actually glad the lawsuit took place, because if it hadn't then
Katz would probably still be trying to keep backward compatible with the
.ARC format (which at the time didn't support things like full directory
names, etc.).

However, I do agree that SEA had a right to protect its copyright.  After all,
what use is a "Standard" if 15 different variations of the standard pop up?
Where would X-Window be now if MIT didn't retain rights to the X-Window 
standard?  How about Kermit?

The correct thing to do is exactly what Katz ended up doing.  Develop a new
competing "standard".  His mistake was making incompatible small modifications
to the established ARC file format which caused confusion.  If he had started
with .ZIP right from the start, things would have been much smoother.

I guess to ME the difficulty is determining what is a "standard".  I can see
file formats, system calls, and other things which would break existing
programs if they are changed being a standard.  However, I have trouble
with the look of a windowing system or the organization of menus being 
a standard.

- Kevin Lowey