Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Phil Katz VERSUS SEAWARE
Keywords: SEA-sick, Just for the Record..
Message-ID: <11298@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 20 Jun 88 15:43:22 GMT
References: <5162@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Distribution: na
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 54

In article <5162@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> kenns@jacobs.cs.orst.edu (Kenn Stump) writes:

|      To all those who are in favor of Phil Katz in his current battle, 
| flame SEAWARE.  I Like PKARC & PKXARC, and other PKstuff, to the point
| of writing this message. 

  What has that got to do with the lawsuit? If PK took some of SEAware's
intellectual property, or used some of their trademerks, it's unfair
even if you like, or I like, or the POPE likes it.

  If ARC is a trademark (the program name, not the file type), then
there may be a misuse of the trademark.  If there is any validity to
look and feel the menus may be an infringement.  It doesn't matter who
thinks look and feel is stupid or great, the law matters.  Again, the
look and feel of the directory listings are very similar. 

  I personally feel that PK did some things which were not morally
justified (regardless of the law).  He used a lot of the look and feel
of ARC, he used the .arc filename, and he made the default of his
program be incompatible with the original arc program.  I believe he did
this to make money.  Certainly creating files which ARC can't unarc
makes SEAware look bad.  At least ARC has an error message "You need a
newer version of ARC," while PKARC says "corrupted archive," implying
that if pkarc doesn't know how to read it it's no good.  While SEAware
released their source code to the world, PK guards his carefully, and
the only way you can handle a pkarc on UNIX or Amiga (or wherever) seems
to be to use an enhanced version of SEA's arc.

  Before anyone trys to tell me that look and feel doesn't apply because
there's no other way to do it, let me say this: hogwash! Rahul Dhesi did
it with zoo, new commands, new user interface, lots of features not in
arc or pkarc. New file format, too, so people wouldn't be confused. Dean
Cooper did it with DWC. New file format and features, and of course a
new file format. The source code for both of these is available, and
both are within five percent of the speed of pkarc under DOS (not always
slower, either), and have about the same compression.

  I was very pleased with pkarc when it first came out, it was faster
and compatible. I assumed the source would be forthcoming. I was wrong.
Of course SEAware has a number of other fine products, such as SEAlink,
and Thom Henderson has given away lots of source code. I forget the
names of PKware's other products and where to get source...

  Why don't we stop arguing about moral grounds here and concentrate on
the legal issues; did pkarc take something from SEAware which is
protected by law? If he did they he should pay. Given the behavior of
the two companies, I believe that it's easy to identify one company
which has taken the "let's make a few bucks from this neat thing," and
one which has done some blatently commercial things. The court will
decide, not the net.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me