dave@sun.soe (Dave Goldblatt) (09/06/88)
From article <175@cix.UUCP>, by fthorn@cix.UUCP (Frank Thornley): > Thom Henderson is one of the pioneers of FIDONET, and among other > products SEA are responsible for the SEADOG mailer program which is a > stand-alone electronic mail program for the IBM-PC. Thom is also > responsible for editing FIDONEWS which is the weekly newsletter > distributed around FIDONET - it runs to something like 100K/week last > time I looked. They have also written a proprietry file-transfer > protocol which is used in several PC comms packages, and bulletin > board systems - SEALINK. > > Frank Thornley - CIX - a new era in communic%%#$^**^ To correct a few misconceptions (without trying to take anything away from Thom Henderson's software development): System Enhancement Associates (SEA) did in fact develop the ARC program. This refers to the MS-DOS program of that name. The compaction routines in ARC were NOT (all) written by Thom Henderson or anyone else at SEA; if you look in the source, you will see he does indeed credit the original source -- at least, he used to. SEAdog is a commercial program he wrote to act as a front-end for Fido bulletin boards; it handles messages and files. Thom no longer actively participates in Fidonet; he withdrew to form his own network, AlterNet. Thus Thom no longer edits the Fidonet newsletter. SEAlink is not "proprietary" in the sense that no one may use it; it instead has been made available for public use, although I do not think the protocol was placed in the public domain. It is similar to WXmodem, but has a six-block windows as opposed to WXmodem's four. The use of the .ARC extension dates back (at least) to the days of CP/M. As such, I fail to see how SEA can attempt to enjoin anyone from using the extension for their own software. I am curious if the other "ARC" utility authors (Vernon Buerg, for example) will be forced from the scene as well. Previously I had a lot of respect for Thom Henderson and SEA; they put out a lot of software to make people's lives easier. Unfortunately, it seems they insist on a monopoly. Sad, but that's the way it looks to me. As an aside, Thom wrote a few months ago that he in fact made an insignificant amount of money from shareware releases of ARC; rather almost all of his income was from businesses licensing ARC for their use. When Phil Katz tried to enter this market, SEA began their current legal action. Reason: SEA supposedly makes into six figures from licensing of ARC. -dg- These opinions are mine exclusively, although they may respresent the feelings of a LOT of Sysops and computer users. Feel free to contact me at the electronic addresses below if you have comments. -- Internet: dave@sun.soe.clarkson.edu or: dave@clutx.clarkson.edu BITNET: dave@CLUTX.Bitnet uucp: {rpics, gould}!clutx!dave Matrix: Dave Goldblatt @ 1:260/360 ICBM: Why do you want to know? :-)
parkert@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Tom Parker) (09/06/88)
In article <1323@sun.soe> dave@sun.soe (Dave Goldblatt) writes:
=Previously I had a lot of respect for Thom Henderson and SEA; they put
=out a lot of software to make people's lives easier. Unfortunately, it
=seems they insist on a monopoly. Sad, but that's the way it looks to
=me.
=
Same feelings here! SEA may drive off a lot of people with his tactics,
but ARC is unfortunately the standard for file compression on Fidonet, and
I doubt that is ever going to change(argh!). Currently, whatever I do, I
WILL NOT be buying/supporting anything by SEA.
=These opinions are mine exclusively, although they may respresent the
=feelings of a LOT of Sysops and computer users. Feel free to contact
=me at the electronic addresses below if you have comments.
=
In Region 17, there seems to be a few people who want to switch to zoo, but
not a whole lot. Most people are saying "Gee, that's great, the best of ARC
and PKARC". They forget that this speed is purchased with Phil Katz's
(figurative) blood. Somehow I can't see myself supporting future versions
of ARC. I'm not sure if I'll toss it if uploaded or not. I'm curious, if
Thom Henderson will get *any* money from people registering PKARC. If not,
I feel a strong urge to register it despite my lack of money right now!
Tom Parker
Internet: jacobs@cs.orst.edu
FidoNet: 152/202 (Sysop)