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From: jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: StuffIt in the trash!
Message-ID: <1990Sep20.175123.3498@silvlis.com>
Date: 20 Sep 90 17:51:23 GMT
References: <24394@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <6288@spt.entity.com> <24486@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
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Reply-To: jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler)
Organization: Silvar-Lisco,Inc. Sunnyvale Ca.
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In article <24486@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> isle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Ken Hancock) writes:
>In article <6288@spt.entity.com> mdc@spt.UUCP (Marty Connor) writes:
>>Aladdin's net rep said that Aladdin considers the format proprietary,
>>and indicated that at least for the present he doesn't see them
>>publishing it.

>Who said anything about publishing?  I didn't.  I said that it was
>quite conceivable that Aladdin would be happy to allow people to
>do other platform developement without any large licensing fees,
>just a non-disclosure agreement from the developer.  Simple enough.

But how are you going to distribute unsit for Unix on the net in
source without disclosing? If you can't distribute it in source
it doesn't help the problem much.

>
>Ok, what it?  What if Aladdin says, "Great, Marty...that would be fine
>if you write a unsit for UNIX environments."  Fine.  You write it,
>release it,

And how would he release. In source code, right. Now, doesn't
the distribution of this source code constitute publishing
the format of Stuffit Deluxe?

>            and then 6 months down the line they change their mind.
>It's already distributed.  You going to delete your copy and ask
>everyone to delete theirs?  I wouldn't delete my copy.

Yes, he could ask that. And if the source code or binaries were
distributed with this as a condition, he and Aladdin could legally
expect it. Oh, its not enforceable. Now we're back to the ethics,
again.

>Chances are, they wouldn't change their mind.  If they did, who
>cares?  It won't make a difference...

It would if they changed their mind about what constitutes the
format of Stuffit Deluxe, and started this whole thing over
again.

>
>Ken
>

I think it's all a moot point anyway. The archivists have probably made
up their minds already. I know of at least one who has announced he is
switching to Compactor because he can use the extra disk.  Either the
archives will stay Stuffit 1.51, a new public domain format will be
found, or the archivists will vote with *their* disk drives for the
format(s) of their choice.

In the latter case, people who batch their uncompressing on their
host machines will have to change their methodology.

Personally, since I pay my phone bill from my host to my Mac, I prefer
to batch the decompression stage on the Mac.

jim
--
Jim Budler          jimb@silvlis.com       +1.408.991.6115
Silvar-Lisco, Inc. 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086