Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!tness7!killer!wnp From: wnp@killer.UUCP (Wolf Paul) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: SEA files against pkarc author Message-ID: <4375@killer.UUCP> Date: 6 Jun 88 23:09:26 GMT References: <597@bpa.BELL-ATL.COM> <2409@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> <733@hadron.UUCP> Reply-To: wnp@killer.UUCP (Wolf Paul) Distribution: na Organization: The Unix(R) Connection BBS, Dallas, Tx Lines: 25 In article <733@hadron.UUCP> klr@hadron.UUCP (Kurt L. Reisler) writes: > > 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. What are you basing this statement on? It seems to me that "look&feel" is not even remotely applicable, since unlike "arc", the pk* programs are two separate programs for archiving and extracting, thus certainly not the same "feel". And the only look to either arc or pk* is ascii text on the screen. If, on the other hand SEA claims a copyright or patent on the format of an *.arc file, then that raises all sorts of interesting questions: Can AT&T copyright the format of a *.tar or *.cpio file? If so, can you have such things as "PDTAR" and "AFIO", or the new C Users Group PDCPIO? Does anyone have more info on this? -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: ihnp4!killer!dcs!wnp ESL: 62832882 DOMAIN: wnp@dcs.UUCP TLX: 910-280-0585 EES PLANO UD