Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!n8emr!cmhgate!p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG!Adam.Frix
From: Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: StuffIt Deluxe
Message-ID: <69945.26EB0E65@cmhgate.FIDONET.ORG>
Date: 8 Sep 90 05:26:16 GMT
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MC>  My primary goal is to make sure that public archives are stored 
MC>  in a public format that developers may freely implement software 
MC>  to manipulate any way they choose, and without interference 
MC>  from any company....


But earlier in this same post, you mentioned how StuffIt 1.5.1 was great because,
for one, it was distributed via public methods (bulletin boards, etc.--the shareware
route).  In effect, then, StuffIt 1.5.1 was _not_ distributed "without interference
from any company."  Ray Lau asked for money for SIT 1.5.1 and earlier.  Morally,
each and every one of us was obligated to pay him if we used the product.  So,
while the format may have been public, the application to create the archives
has _never_ been public.  Yet, you support this format.

So I ask:  do you support a program as long as its file format is made public,
regardless of whether the program itself is free or not?  What I'm getting at
here is, for public archives, shouldn't the whole shebang be freely and publicly
distributed?  The archiver, the unarchiver, and the format?  If Joe Programmer
must pay (at least has the moral obligation to pay) Ray Lau/Aladdin in order
to use the program which archives his Neat-O Program in order that he may publicly
and freely distribute his work, isn't that just as bad as your not having access
to the file format for that archive in order to retrieve Joe's program files?

--Adam--
 

--  
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