Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!decwrl!bacchus.pa.dec.com!deccrl!decvax.dec.com!zinn!wgc386!slum!slumlord From: slumlord@slum.MV.COM (Laird Heal) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: StuffIt Deluxe Keywords: binaries, archives Message-ID: <1990Sep6.030507.6298@slum.MV.COM> Date: 6 Sep 90 03:05:07 GMT References: <1990Aug20.075638.3276@rbdc> <6257@emory.mathcs.emory.edu> <2146@ux.acs.umn.edu> <1990Aug29.204448.23954@svc.portal.com> <5186@spt.entity.com> <11217@claris.com> <5193@spt.entity.com> <9992@goofy.Apple.COM> <5216@spt.entity.com> <1 Reply-To: samsung!slum!slumlord Organization: dis Lines: 48 In article <5216@spt.entity.com>, mdc@spt.UUCP (Marty Connor) writes: >In article <9992@goofy.Apple.COM> alexr@apple.com (Alexander M. Rosenberg) >writes: > >>Have you even tried to call Alladin? Propreitary means only that they know >>who has the information; it doesn't mean that they won't give it out. Stop >>whining about it. Call them. > >You're flat wrong. Proprietary can and often does mean that >information will be withheld. Often selectively. > >Public Information *means* that one doesn't have to get permission to >use information. > >Real freedom is being able to write code without getting permission from >other people. > >[discussion omitted] This discussion is getting sidetracked into philosophy. The current method works. Tools both on Macintosh and net hosts handle the files. I have unsit sitting around here: where is unsitd? If one wanted to change - well atob and btoa are better than BinHex, featuring a means of recovering some errors and smaller ASCII files, and there are other archivers: tar for Macintosh (holding nose) comes with source code as does a version of compress (an MPW tool). The pieces are there, and we could do it all better, but what is here works. Any analogy to dinosaurs is inappropriate. Sure, let's consider our options but let's not stick our noses out and wait for them to be broken. You could get the file format released in a second if you convinced Alladin that they would make more money that way. They would, unless they plan to write unsitd themselves and sell it to each of us on our so-compatible Uxxx computers. Nobody ever wrote a program to create Stuffit archives except for Stuffit, is that right? What do they have to lose? If Stuffit Deluxe handles other archives in proprietary formats, by the way, those other companies may have specified the Stuffit Deluxe format be kept under nondisclosure. Laird Heal laird@slum.MV.COM Freedom is never free. (Salem, NH) (603) 898-1406 -- Laird J. Heal {root, slumlord, laird}@slum.MV.COM (Salem, NH) (603) 898-1406