Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!killer!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: SEA files against pkarc author
Message-ID: <2693@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 11 Jun 88 13:16:11 GMT
References: <597@bpa.BELL-ATL.COM> <2409@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> <733@hadron.UUCP>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Distribution: na
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 25

IN article <733@hadron.UUCP>, klr@hadron.UUCP (Kurt L. Reisler) wrote:
> 	Seems that the author of the MS-DOS version of ARC, and
> 	President of SEA has filed a "look & feel" law suit against the
> 	author of pkarc.  I wonder what impact this will have on the
> 	Unix versions that are floating around, all of which are derived
> 	from the source code for ARC, which was released by SEA.

I have my doubts.  PKXARC doesn't feel like ARC: it isn't as sluggish.  PKXARC
does look like ARC though, as a casual user of ARC could walk up to a screen
with the tail end of a "PKARC -v file.arc" display and not realize it isn't
ARC.  The legal precedent is not established yet, so it's not clear if it's
"look and feel" or "look or feel".

An Achilles' heel to SEA's claims is that fact that SEA did not write
a major portion of the ARC code: the Lempel Ziv compressor.  That code was
lifted straight out of the unix compress.c, with one change being that the
original author's names were stripped (Welch's name was left in).

The fact that Henderson is trying to profit from work others placed in the
public domain does not lend him much credibility for pursuing PKXARC.

PS. I do think anyone using Henderson's source for a unix ARC is standing on
    quicksand.  Why anyone would want a unix ARC when tar & compress are
    available is beyond me.-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen   ...!ut-sally!utastro!bigtex!james   "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746