Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: PK361.EXE
Message-ID: <11866@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 16 Aug 88 15:39:23 GMT
References: <3656@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 27

In article <3656@bsu-cs.UUCP> astieber@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes:
| 
| In regards to the settlement:
|       The agreement between SEA and PKWare implies that a file format can be
|    copyrighted and that it is illegal for any unauthorized entity to make use
|    of the file format either in reading or writing it. Of course those people
|    who use the authorized programs may make use of them (esp. if they send in
|    some dough).

  Since the details of what was and wasn't established are sealed, I
don't *think* this case is a prescedent. I think that the issue was PK
creating ARC files which the original ARC program couldn't handle. This
made SEA look bad, and resulted in a lot of questions to SEA as to the
nature of the problem.

  Another issue was the 'look and feel' of certain portions of the help
screens, directory listings, and command structures.

  Since we don't know the reasoning, I personally assume that if PK gave
in so completely, his lawyers must have felt that some parts of the
action had merit. I look forward to seeing what his new product is and
does, but unless I can run it on UNIX, VMS, Amiga, etc, I will continue
to use ZOO for portability (I've said that before).
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me