Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:18057 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:725
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!roskos
From: roskos@csed-1.IDA.ORG (Eric Roskos)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: PK361.EXE
Keywords: PKARC ZOO
Message-ID: <444@csed-47.csed-1.IDA.ORG>
Date: 11 Aug 88 17:13:12 GMT
References:  <356@marob.MASA.COM> <4452@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA
Lines: 20

The debates over who is "right" aside, it seems that a significant issue
is that now, at least for the present, the archival method used for the
Usenet's PC archives is based on a commercial product, and thus the
Usenet is supporting a commercial product.  In the old days, this would
have been severely frowned upon.  It would seem better to use a freely
available archival method, regardless of whether it is nominally
"slower", since most people only unarchive the distributions once, and
thus speed is not the major concern. 

It could be argued that the Usenet has fallen victim to one of the
occasional practices of competitive businesses: let the illegal
competition help you establish a market before you take legal action
against them and take over their market share thereby.  A variation of
"create a need and fill it".  Somewhat like the fate of some product
clones, and, almost accidentally, 256K dynamic RAMs. 

Disclaimer: The above is my personal opinion.
-- 
Eric Roskos, IDA (csed-1!roskos or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.ARPA)

	"The just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus." --HDT