mlinar@eve.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar) (10/03/88)
In article <439@l5comp.UUCP> scotty@l5comp.UUCP (Scott Turner) writes:
#[The author kindly asks that if you wish to flame him in public that you
#at least read the last few paragraphs of this message before doing so.]
#
Get ready....
#
# ... lots of stuff on the legal aspects ....
#
#
# [[1]]
#These guys are only going to make the source for the file access toolkit
#available in the public domain folks. NOT the programs! No one has promised
#to write a program using this library and give it away as yet. And don't
#fool yourselves, Phil isn't going to be doing anything of the sort! He already
#has a track record on this point. SEA gave out the source to ARC, Phil gave
#away no such thing for PKARC.....
#
# [[2]]
#Phil has made alot of friends by providing a faster archiver with a better
#compression scheme, but he has done little or nothing to further the
#public domain. No one gets to stare at his source to gleen new methods of
#doing things, ....
#
# [[3]]
# ...... Mr. Katz went in and started
#taking away SEA's business without paying the dues that SEA has paid in full.
#There are no VMS/Unix/Atari ST/Commodore C64/CPM/Amiga PKARC programs folks.
#And there never would have been since Phil never released his source.
#
# [[4]]
#Phil Katz guy decides he's going to go after it, without having any of the
#overhead from being the industry standard. He can even add this SQUASHED
#format with ease since he has no concerns of VMS/UNIX/AMIGA etc...
#
# [[5]]
# ... I
#mean when you get right down to it who's done the most good for the most
#people? SEA or PKWare? Who's been more open? SEA or PKWare? Who's had the
#
# [[6]]
#SEA gave us source code to ARC so everyone could use it. PKWare gave us
#nothing. If SEA were to give up on ARC those of us that depended on that
#source code for non-PCDOS versions of ARC would be screwed since PKWare
#never gave away their source. Never promised to either. Never gave away..
#
# [[7]]
#He doesn't have to promise to give away all the source code, since he has
#cleverly made the two topics of file format and reading/writing it HOT
#buttons for the public. They see he's going to be a good guy about these
#hot buttons and look no further. Like how those folks using machines Phil
#has no intrest in are going to get a copy of his new program to use? Phil is
#going to have a whole new market open to him on the PC universe and if he
#succeeds in the current campaign he'll make a PILE of money off it. He's not
#about to repeat SEA's mistake and give away the source code to HIS program
#so he can face his own Phil Katz some day.
#
Well, Scott, although I found your initial arguments about the landmine
trap PK fell into very interesting, the rest of your original posting can be
summarized in two words:
SOUR GRAPES
You made a point (7 times as noted above) about the lack of source code
being provided to the public. My question is:
Since WHEN is release of source code MANDATORY???????
I you publish a standard, does it HAVE to include source code?
How many companies give away source code for FREE?
How much source code do you have to commercial programs???????
This is NOT a PK vs SEA argument; the fact that SEA gave away source
(in C, not in assembler) made it easy for it to migrate to other machines.
PK did not and, as such, is confined to the PC. As long as the FORMAT
by which files are archived is known, so *you* could write your own,
SEA had no obligation to do this. (You are right that PK could have been
more responsive on releasing SQUASH specs.)
Generating working and correct source code is a LOT of work even after an
entire program's activities are well-defined. Programming tricks are common
to shortening this time, clever memory manipulation, etc. Why give it to a
competitor for free?
If a company chooses to release source code, they are trading
off (if in a multi-platform language like C) wide distribution versus
risk of someone getting a competing product to market faster (by "looking"
at your source code to get programming tricks, if nothing else). That
may be a factor in your decision to buy that product, but you
suggest that because PK did not release source code, they deserved what
they got.
Thus, you cap off a very interesting and neutral "landmine" discussion with
a highly emotional and biased "no source code, so f--- them" argument.
Kinda ruins your whole posting....
-Mitch