johnm@trsvax.UUCP (10/26/88)
>> >>PLEASE let's not start considering the use of YET ANOTHER standard. A very >>usable, efficient, widely available, and well supported standard now exists > ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>in the form of FREEZOO. > >Is this a joke !? > > >Why? >Let's keep using PK361. >Why not? I realize that you will probably get more flames from this than you know what to do with, but here is a (hopefully) flame free answer to the question, "Why not?". 1) PK361 is heavily involved in litigation at this moment and may very well become an UNDISTRIBUTABLE product if SEA has its way about it. 2) Even if #1 does not come to pass, Phil Katz has already declared that he "will be" coming out with an all new algorithm and program shortly AND by the requirements of the lawsuit it won't be compatible with his old work. 3) Many of us feel that continuing to have anything to do with the ARC "standard" constitutes tacit approval of SEA and its lawsuit. This is because continued support of the standard could only help them. 4) The ARC "standard" largely ignores the fact that people use computers other than the IBM PC. Zoo is usable by people with Amigas, Xenix systems, Unix sites, NeXT's, etc because it does not impose an arbitrary eight character-dot- three character name convention on the files. As the owner of an Amiga this is very important to me. I'm sure others can think of even more reasons but these should be sufficient to explain exactly why we can no longer use PK361 or (I believe) the ARC format in general. John Munsch
driesb@neabbs.UUCP (DRIES BESSELS) (10/29/88)
Hi John, I do not know how the situation is in the USA but in Holland, you can get an ARC for the Amiga and for the ATARI. I undrstood they are version based on the old ARC sources which were distributed but still... As for VAX, NeXt, etc, I do not know but why not, the sources are there? BTW, have you seen any software yet for the NeXt (or a better question yet, have you seen the NeXt?) BCNU Dries Bessels Amsterdam, Holland
johnm@trsvax.UUCP (10/31/88)
>Hi John, I'm not sure if I'm the John you're referring too, but... >I do not know how the situation is in the USA but in Holland, you can >get an ARC for the Amiga and for the ATARI. I undrstood they are >version based on the old ARC sources which were distributed but >still... As for VAX, NeXt, etc, I do not know but why not, the sources >are there? Yes, ARC exists and I have it, but it isn't pkarc and thus does not support squashing, it cuts my filenames to pieces (which may not seem like much but it gets to be a pain having to rename everything all the time), and I have reason to believe may be buggy. Zoo gives me more features, a consistent user interface across all my machines (VAX, PC, and Amiga), and I'm confident that there are no problems with it. It is also litigation free and I can expect it to have some form of future. ARC's forms on other machines however will probably have to be the next target of SEA if they are really intent on pursuing this to the fullest (and they seem to be). >BTW, have you seen any software yet for the NeXt (or a better question >yet, have you seen the NeXt?) I haven't seen a NeXT but I've seen plenty of software for it, I read comp.sources.unix every day :-) >BCNU >Dries Bessels >Amsterdam, Holland John Munsch