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
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