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From: manes@marob.MASA.COM (Steve Manes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: PK361.EXE
Message-ID: <367@marob.MASA.COM>
Date: 13 Aug 88 09:47:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: marob.367
References: <6084@xanth.cs.odu.edu>
Organization: ESCC  New York City
Lines: 34

From article <6084@xanth.cs.odu.edu>, by rlb@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Robert Lee Bailey):
> I agree.  Suppose that SEAs attitude had been prevalent at the turn
> of the century?  Can you imagine the early automobile manufacturers
> suing each other because their competitors product also happened to
> have 4 wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel?  What would your
> car look like today?  Each brand would be so different that a
> separate class of drivers license would be required for each brand!

The analogy ain't right.  There seems to be some misapprehension in some
quarters about what this case was about.  It wasn't about assumed
trademarks to the file extension, ".ARC", or about SEA trying to shoot
down other competitors in the archiver racket.  The case, to which
PKware pled no contest, was over use of SEA's copyrighted code in the
development of PKARC (the LZ algorithm isn't SEA's but its internal
directory structures are) and "unfair trade practices" concerning what
PKware did with that information, which was in effect to use SEA's own
proprietary code to damage SEA in the marketplace.  SEA didn't go after
Vern Buerg for ARC-E and didn't go after Rahul Dhesi for ZOO and didn't
go after Dean Cooper for DWC.  These guys developed their own products
and their own markets for programs that do virtually the same thing as
SEA's ARC.

> I guess that the developers of the UNIX ARC utility had better pack
> their bags and go into hiding.  They will probably be next on SEAs
> "hit list".  

No, actually Thom Henderson has officially given his blessing to the
Unix community to use his ARC source.  His demand was that it not be
used to develop knock-off ARC binaries for which the author claims a
copyright.  Nothing wrong with that.
-- 
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