Volume 5, Number 40 3 October 1988 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief Dale Lovell Editor Emeritus: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings Contributing Editors: Al Arango FidoNews is published weekly by the International FidoNet Association as its official newsletter. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1:1/1. Copyright 1988 by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA at (314) 576-4067. IFNA may also be contacted at PO Box 41143, St. Louis, MO 63141. Fido and FidoNet are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings of Fido Software, 164 Shipley Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94107 and are used with permission. The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. We publish EVERYTHING received. Table of Contents 1. EDITORIAL ................................................ 1 SEA & PKWare - Where's the beef? ......................... 1 2. ARTICLES ................................................. 2 My Two Cents Worth on PK vs. SEA ......................... 3 3. COLUMNS .................................................. 8 Let's YACK about The ARC Dilemma ......................... 8 4. NOTICES .................................................. 10 The Interrupt Stack ...................................... 10 New IFNA Address for Orders and Memberships .............. 10 Latest Software Versions ................................. 10 5. COMMITTEE REPORTS ........................................ 11 IFNA Treasurer's Report .................................. 11 FidoNews 5-40 Page 1 3 Oct 1988 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= SEA & PKWare Where's the beef? That's the question that's been bothering everyone recently. It all started around the beginning of the year when System Enhancement Associates sued PKWare. From the beginning, I've supported SEA mainly because I called SEA and talked with Thom Henderson. Not that many people were willing to do something like this. Why? I'm not sure, it sure seemed an easy way to get one person's version of what was going on quickly and easily. Why didn't I call Phil Katz? Mainly because I knew Thom from FidoCon '87. I'm not sure how much good it would have done anyway, for the past two weeks no matter when I call PKWare, I get an answering machine. What are my opinions on the two lawsuits between these two companies? Well, first off my opinions are biased. I consider Thom a friend and trust him. While I do not consider his words gospel, I usually accept most of what he says. In this matter, I believe that SEA was completely correct to sue PKWare. While I've learned a few new things about copyright law while looking into these lawsuits that I'm not entirely pleased with, I am capable of understanding why they exist. While many of us may not like some parts of copyright law we may discover upon looking into these cases, it is the law. There are procedures to follow in order to change these laws, use them if you feel they are unfair. Hopefully some of the articles in this issue will help to convince you over to my way of thinking. If not, so be it. I only ask that we take these messages out of echomail. They are accomplishing nothing and succeeding to excessively annoy many of us. Before you enter a message about the lawsuits again, take the time and read this edition, call those directly involved, obtain the documents from the courts, but STOP THE COMPLAINING AND WHINING!!! Echomail can accomplish so much, why make it accomplish nothing??? Dale Lovell 3266 Vezber Drive Seven Hills, OH 44131 data: 216/642-1034 1:157/504 aka 1:1/1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 2 3 Oct 1988 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= [NOTE: Message modified by Tim Pozar on 29 Sep 88 13:24:02] From hoptoad!cogsci!SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL!KPETERSEN From: hoptoad!cogsci!SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL!W8SDZ (Keith Petersen) To: hoptoad!ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU!hoptoad!pozar (Tim Pozar) Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1988 11:35 MDT [For submission to Fido News special ARC edition] Both SEA and PKWare are likely to be in hot water soon. All we want is a PUBLIC DOMAIN archiving system which is immune to this nonsense! BTW, ZOO isn't it. It has a copyright and restrictions on distribution. DATAPOINT has a trademark (and has had it since the '70s) on the word ARC. As reprinted from a current Datapoint Manual: "Attached Resource Computer" is a trademark of DATAPOINT Corporation. Registered in the US patent and Trademark office. "ARC" is a trademark of DATAPOINT Corp. Any recent DATAPOINT document has this copyright/trademark statement, the document it came from was called "RMS SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION UTILITIES" DATAPOINT document Number 50928 Dated September, 1985. The "RMS Quick Reference Guide" Document No. 61017 contains a larger copyright notice. A person who is very involved with DATAPOINT and their ARCNET configurations said that the Attached Resource Computer is a combination of hardware and software, and in fact, they have a software program used with ARCNET called "ARC". He is very familiar with DATAPOINT, and said that he will be talking to the legal department at the DATAPOINT headquarters in Texas to inform them of the lawsuits currently pending between SEA and PKWARE, and determine if DATAPOINT wants to pursue legal action of their own. --Keith Petersen Arpa: W8SDZ@SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL Uucp: {decwrl,harvard,rutgers,ucbvax,uunet}!simtel20.army.mil!w8sdz ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 3 3 Oct 1988 John Herro 1:363/6 MY TWO CENTS WORTH ON PK VS. SEA In this controversy, neither side is 100% right, but I hope the BBS world goes with Phil Katz' new Shareware for several reasons. PKxARC is much, much faster than ARC. It also compresses some files more than ARC, because it considers Squashing as one alter- native. I'm a Shareware author, and I'm using a registered copy of PKARC to distribute my program ADA-TUTR, the Interactive Ada Tutor. I understand that the court order allows registered users of PKxARC to continue to use it indefinitely. I also understand that Phil Katz was ordered to change the file extension from .ARC, which he has done. After the first of the year, however, he can no longer distribute the program. He has to come up with another file compression algorithm. He expects to come up with a new algorithm that's superior to ARC. I'm looking forward to seeing his new program! Just as ARC has almost completely replaced older schemes like SQZ and LBR, I hope that Phil's new scheme will completely replace ARC and become the new BBS standard. SEA seems to be leaning toward commercial software. The only reason I won't buy a copy of AXE is that it's commercial and not Shareware. I'd gladly pay that much to register Shareware. I think Shareware is an idea whose time has come, and it almost completely solves the problem of software piracy. Even if SEA keeps ARC as Shareware for now, who's to say that further im- provements won't be commercial, as happened to Fido? SEA seems to be going in that direction. I prefer PK because I think there's a greater chance that future improvements will remain Shareware. If Phil's new algorithm is to become the BBS standard, a lot of software will have to be updated. Examples are BBS systems that can "look inside" archives, and "ARCMAIL-like" programs. Soft- ware authors should plan to update as soon as Phil Katz publishes his new algorithm. We changed file compression standards before; we can do it again. We want the FASTEST and BEST compression to be the standard. The PK programs have been faster and better than SEA, and I expect that to continue. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 4 3 Oct 1988 Thom Henderson, president System Enhancement Associates voice: (201) 473-5153 data: (201) 473-1991 Now That It's Over, What Did It Mean? Now that the dust has settled in the first shareware copyright case, it is time for SEA to make public the facts that many members of the shareware community deserve to know. For the record, SEA is a family owned business. Andy Foray, the company chairman, and Thom Henderson, the company president, are brothers-in-law. Irene Henderson, the secretary/treasurer and office manager, is Andy's sister and Thom's wife. As the creators, publishers and defenders of the industry standard ARC file compression format, we have always maintained a strong belief in a fundamental concept of shareware -- that shareware be distributed for free for all non-commercial use. To this end, we have never, and will never, charge for the use of ARC in a non-commercial environment. We also believe that full program sources should be available, at least to registered users, and we have always made the full ARC sources available to all users. We have also licensed a great many people to use the ARC sources in their own programs. We discovered that PKWARE had obtained our source code without obtaining a license. He modified that code so that the program ran faster and provided several other enhancements. However, the nuts and bolts of the program were done by SEA. That is called PIRACY, plain and simple. And this industry has no place for pirates. We tried to politely ask PKWARE to obtain a license. He ungraciously told us where to go. We asked our lawyer what we should do. He said we were bound by law to protect our rights to the trademark and copyrights on ARC. If we did not, then anyone could use the ARC trademark and copyrights. It is very much like a candy bar calling itself Hershey. If another company used the Hershey name without permission, you can imagine what would happen. Also, it should be noted that PKWARE did not live up to the high standards set by the shareware industry. He didn't make his source code available. He sought out our market and competed directly for our corporate market by using the funds he had received from non-commercial users (whom we would not charge!) He authorized ads with false and misleading comparison statements to run in the magazines we advertised in. And he placed those ads on the same pages as our ads. If we did not protect our investment in the ARC trademark, we would have lost our trademark, our market and our business. Furthermore, the industry would have been left in disarray, as two standards would FidoNews 5-40 Page 5 3 Oct 1988 have emerged. So after Phil Katz told us he would not settle this case like a gentleman, we were forced to ask the courts to settle it for us. We didn't want to go to court. We couldn't afford the lawyers fees. We couldn't afford the time away from programming the updated versions of ARC that will work on other systems, such as Unix, Macintosh, and VM/CMS. And we couldn't afford to create a controversy in an industry that we helped to pioneer. We also couldn't afford to create ill will among users -- both our users and PKWARE users. But PKware left us no choice. Anyway, the case didn't get very far, thanks to the testimony of an expert witness, John Navas. He looked at the source code of both programs and found, lo and behold, that the PKWARE program was indeed a blatant copy of the SEA code. When Katz heard this, he called us directly -- bypassing the attorneys -- and said he wanted to settle. We were only too happy to put a quick end to this. We wanted the facts to come out. Unfortunately, Katz demanded that part of the settlement terms be kept under court seal. We agreed, and we probably should not have, but we did because we wanted to end the case quickly so we could get back to updating and improving ARC. Some of the terms are public: PKWARE cannot distribute the program after January 1, 1989, they cannot substantially change the program (though they can make bug fixes) and if they receive inquiries for the product, they must send out SEA literature. Also, PKWARE is prohibited from creating a new program that is compatible with ARC or PKARC. If those terms sound one-sided, then it only goes to prove the extent to which PKWARE felt that it had no legitimate right to its program. After all, why would he give up everything if he was right? He obviously was not above board in this case, even though the settlement terms said he was not admitting fault in any way (a standard legalese ploy). We are a bit perturbed that one of PKWARE's part-time employees obtained a copy of the sealed court document, typed it into a file along with numerous typos and loaded it onto several bulletin board systems. She also included her own biased, editorial opinion on the case and its terms. While we don't believe PKWARE had authorized this action, it obviously violates the sense of fair play that we have lived with, at Mr. Katz' request. Now we are faced with several problems. The bulletin board community has heard many comments by people who did not possess the facts of this case, and therefore made ill informed opinions. Those opinions seemed like fact because we did not respond to them while the case was in progress. FidoNews 5-40 Page 6 3 Oct 1988 You are well aware that no party in a legal action can really speak his mind while the action is occurring. Because we didn't respond, people assumed that we were wrong. Well, we weren't wrong and we won't be silent any more. We have begun responding to the outrageous and outlandish opinions expressed against SEA. We realize that people came to the only conclusion possible, given the lack of reliable information about this case. We will respond to any and every comment about this case. We welcome questions and urge people to call us at our office. When the dust settles, no one will doubt our sincerity in trying to do the right thing. We'd also like to clear up a few basic misconceptions that have appeared on the boards: - SEA waited too long to take action. Response: The legal world moves slowly. First we have to be aware of the situation, determine that a violation of our copyright existed, try to settle amicably and then take legal action. That takes time. - SEA doesn't upgrade it's program. Response: We have updated the program nine times in three years. We have made it available for several other operating systems, such as OS/2 and CP/M. We will continue to upgrade the program to benefit all users on all systems. - SEA used the courts when it realized it couldn't compete on raw programming talent. Response: We have a very good program and one that is getting better. We wouldn't be the defenders of an industry standard if we didn't have programming talent to begin with. - SEA is a Goliath pursuing a David called Phil Katz. Response: Phil Katz is a not just a person. He is a company, and a big one at that. PKWARE is a bigger company than SEA, despite the fact we publish four programs. We calculate that PKware currently grosses almost $2,000 a day, or about five times what we do. We challenge him to make his audited figures public. - PKWARE must be a small company because we hear there are only three employees including his mother. Response: We applaud Mrs. Katz and wish her the best of success. We too are a family run company. Andy Foray and Thom Henderson are brothers-in-law and Irene Henderson serves as secretary/treasurer. We have hired a programmer and a FidoNews 5-40 Page 7 3 Oct 1988 license manager. We didn't do this because we had a windfall profit, we did this because we needed to stay competitive and to serve new markets. - SEA should have pursued the case to a jury trial so a precedent could be set for the industry. Response: We wish we had the money to support our lawyer to take this case to a jury trial conclusion. However, we were eating hot dogs every night and had to take on outside consulting jobs to make ends meet. We needed to end this case before the legal fees devoured our company. Besides, we weren't out to crucify the guy -- we just wanted him to stop stealing our work. If there are more questions, be assured, we will respond to them. We have also issued a new policy statement regarding the licensing of ARC. It has been uploaded to the IBMSW forum on CompuServe, the utilities/archivers conference on BIX, and has been disseminated to other BBSes as well. The terms probably are the most liberal for any licensing policy for any software company. And if that isn't enough, give us a call and we'll see what we can work out. We welcome the opportunity to better serve the shareware community. We invite your comments and your suggestions. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 8 3 Oct 1988 ================================================================= COLUMNS ================================================================= YACK Yet Another Complicated Komment by Steven K. Hoskin ( STEVE HOSKIN at 1:128/31 ) Episode 12: The ARC Dilemma Well, Dale, you asked for it. Opinions on ARC and the SEA/PKWare lawsuit(s). I'll TRY to keep it on one page. I understand SEA has considered ARC to be its trademark; SEA may have even registered such. That's fine, but my understanding is also that SEA has done nothing in three years to protect that trademark. I am given to understand that failure to take actions to protect a trademark leaves the bearer of said trademark subject to loss of rights to same. I understand that law recognizes that a trademark, even if previously registered and accepted, can become generic, and if it does so, the bearer of the trademark loses it. Monopoly, for example, has become generic in the sense that when the average person thinks of Monopoly they think of the game and not of Milton Bradley (or whatever company makes the stupid game). Therefore, Monopoly programs can be written without the authors being successfully being sued for trademark violation since the company that makes the game has legally lost the trademark; it is now generic. This fact has been upheld in at least two court cases. (1) Has ARC become generic? If not, I'd say it's virtually so now. What do YOU refer to an archive as? Most everyone I've ever known calls them ARCs. "Say, Steve, what ARC program do you use to ARC and deARC your ARCs?" "I use PKARC because it's TONS faster and saves more space, and if I need to I can still use the option to make ARCs that ARC can deARC." If that isn't generic I don't know what is. And THAT came from a REAL conversation. I don't mean to say SEA is wrong in this lawsuit (and I hear a second one has been filed), but one point stands out clear: SEA released source code to their shareware users, opening the door to duplicated procedures in other programs and virtually elimating SEA's ability to track down abusers of that source. I think this fact probably eliminates SEA's ability to say it has taken sufficient measures to protect "its" trademark. _______________ (1) Shareware, a magazine that discusses and hosts advertisements for shareware, freeware and public domain programs. I do not recall the edition or volume number. FidoNews 5-40 Page 9 3 Oct 1988 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 10 3 Oct 1988 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 23 Nov 1988 25th Anniversary of "Dr. Who" - and still going strong 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. 5 Oct 1989 20th Anniversary of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1:1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Rudolph Effective with this FidoNews issue all IFNA monetary transactions will be handled by our Treasure, Steve Bonine (1:1/11). Steve will deposit money and verify memberships for all IFNA Orders. The actual processing of memberships and filing of PO's will continue to be done by other individuals after the treasure's duties are completed. The administrative and legal address are now both listed as St. Louis. The forms at the back of this FidoNews refect this change. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Latest Software Versions BBS Systems Node List Other & Mailers Version Utilities Version Utilities Version Dutchie 2.90b* EditNL 4.00 ARC 5.22* Fido 12h MakeNL 2.12 ARCmail 1.1 Opus 1.03b Prune 1.40 ConfMail 4.00* SEAdog 4.10 XlatList 2.86 EchoMail 1.31 TBBS 2.0M XlaxNode 2.10 MGM 1.1 BinkleyTerm 2.00* XlaxDiff 2.10 TPB Editor 1.21* QuickBBS 2.03* ParseList 1.20* TPBoard 4.2* * Recently changed Utility authors: Please help keep this list up to date by reporting new versions to 1:1/1. It is not our intent to list all utilities here, only those which verge on necessity. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 11 3 Oct 1988 ================================================================= COMMITTEE REPORTS ================================================================= IFNA Treasurer's Report September, 1988 Steve Bonine 115/777 I was elected IFNA treasurer at FidoCon in August and plan to provide a short summary of IFNA finances in FidoNews each month. By the time I close the books, get the article to Dale, and it gets published, expect it around the middle of the month. This month's report isn't typical. The transition is not yet complete, so I'm not really able to provide my own report. The IFNA account in Hawaii is still being used, and Leonard Mednick has been generous in his help during the transition period. I hope to have things switched in time to provide a more normal report next month. The monthly data provided in FidoNews will be a summary. For those of you who want more detail, file-request from 115/777 using the "magic name" of IFNA$. (I accept either type of file request, 23 hours a day.) This file will be updated monthly and contains the summary and detail data for each month. Detail data is provided in both a standard text file and in spreadsheet format. Analyze to your heart's content. There was considerable discussion before FidoCon about a committee to "oversee" the treasurer. After FidoCon, I posted a message in the IFNA echomail conference soliciting volunteers for this task. Either the message got lost, or none of the folks who were so willing to complain are willing to help. I have not received a single offer of help, or even a flame! If you are interested in this aspect of IFNA affairs, please contact either myself or Mark Grennan (147/1) who is chair of the Administration and Finance Committee. And now, thanks to Leonard Mednick, a summary for August. RECIEPTS & DEPOSITS Membership fees 850.00 Sales 180.00 Interest earned 20.11 TOTAL RECEIPTS $1050.11 DISBURSEMENTS Postage 43.80 Phone expense 301.89 Box rental 28.00 TOTAL DISBURSEMENTS 373.69 EXCESS RECEIPTS OVER DISBURSEMENTS 676.42 FidoNews 5-40 Page 12 3 Oct 1988 ADD BEGINNING BALANCE 4109.03 BALANCE IN ACCOUNT 4785.45 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 13 3 Oct 1988 OFFICERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION Hal DuPrie 101/106 Chairman of the Board Bob Rudolph 261/628 President Matt Whelan 3:3/1 Vice President Ray Gwinn 109/639 Vice President - Technical Coordinator David Garrett 103/501 Secretary Steve Bonine 115/777 Treasurer IFNA BOARD OF DIRECTORS DIVISION AT-LARGE 10 Courtney Harris 102/732? Don Daniels 107/210 11 Bill Allbritten 11/301 Hal DuPrie 101/106 12 Bill Bolton 3:54/61 Mark Grennan 147/1 13 Rick Siegel 107/27 Steve Bonine 115/777 14 Ken Kaplan 100/22 Ted Polczyinski 154/5 15 Larry Kayser 104/739? Matt Whelan 3:3/1 16 Vince Perriello 141/491 Robert Rudolph 261/628 17 Rob Barker 138/34 Steve Jordan 102/2871 18 Christopher Baker 135/14 Bob Swift 140/24 19 David Drexler 19/1 Larry Wall 15/18 2 Henk Wevers 2:500/1 David Melnik 107/233 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 14 3 Oct 1988 __ The World's First / \ BBS Network /|oo \ * FidoNet * (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / Fido \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (tm) Membership for the International FidoNet Association Membership in IFNA is open to any individual or organization that pays a specified annual membership fee. IFNA serves the international FidoNet-compatible electronic mail community to increase worldwide communications. Member Name _______________________________ Date _______________ Address _________________________________________________________ City ____________________________________________________________ State ________________________________ Zip _____________________ Country _________________________________________________________ Home Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Work Phone (Voice) ______________________________________________ Zone:Net/Node Number ____________________________________________ BBS Name ________________________________________________________ BBS Phone Number ________________________________________________ Baud Rates Supported ____________________________________________ Board Restrictions ______________________________________________ Your Special Interests __________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ In what areas would you be willing to help in FidoNet? __________ _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Send this membership form and a check or money order for $25 in US Funds to: International FidoNet Association PO Box 41143 St Louis, Missouri 63141 USA Thank you for your membership! Your participation will help to insure the future of FidoNet. Please NOTE that IFNA is a general not-for-profit organization and Articles of Association and By-Laws were adopted by the membership in January 1987. The second elected Board of Directors was filled in August 1988. The IFNA Echomail Conference has been established on FidoNet to assist the Board. We welcome your input to this Conference. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FidoNews 5-40 Page 15 3 Oct 1988 INTERNATIONAL FIDONET ASSOCIATION ORDER FORM Publications The IFNA publications can be obtained by downloading from Fido 1:1/10 or other FidoNet compatible systems, or by purchasing them directly from IFNA. We ask that all our IFNA Committee Chairmen provide us with the latest versions of each publication, but we can make no written guarantees. Hardcopy prices as of October 1, 1986 IFNA Fido BBS listing $15.00 _____ IFNA Administrative Policy DOCs $10.00 _____ IFNA FidoNet Standards Committee DOCs $10.00 _____ SUBTOTAL _____ IFNA Member ONLY Special Offers System Enhancement Associates SEAdog $60.00 _____ SEAdog price as of March 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy SEAdog per IFNA Member Fido Software's Fido/FidoNet $100.00 _____ Fido/FidoNet price as of November 1, 1987 ONLY 1 copy Fido/FidoNet per IFNA Member International orders include $10.00 for surface shipping or $20.00 for air shipping _____ SUBTOTAL _____ MO. Residents add 5.725% Sales Tax _____ TOTAL _____ SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER IN US FUNDS: International FidoNet Association PO Box 41143 St Louis, Mo. 63141 USA Name________________________________ Zone:Net/Node____:____/____ Company_____________________________ Address_____________________________ City____________________ State____________ Zip_____ Voice Phone_________________________ Signature___________________________ -----------------------------------------------------------------