From: oldroyd@wucs1.wustl.edu (L. A. Oldroyd)
Subject: Re: PKWARE AND ASI AGREEMENT
Summary: flame: data compression price hike coming?
Organization: Washington University, St. Louis Mo.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 15:32:42 GMT

In article <...> tim.meade%theweb@meaddata.com (Tim Meade)  writes:
>Dayton, OH -- September 1, 1992  -- ASi and PKWare Inc. announced
>strategic agreement today, under which the two companies will
>cooperatively develop platform independent data compression programs
>and routines.
 [...]
>    --  jointly working to provide an open system solution to data
                                       ^^^^
>compression based on PKWare's PKZip program.
 [...]
>Immediate products available through existing ASi and PKWare distributor
>channels will include PK Data Compression Library for Unix, MacIntosh,
>Ultrix, and MVS along with PKZip for UNIX.  Soon to be released
>products include PKZip for MacIntosh and Amiga. Additional product
>details, availability, and pricing will be announced as soon as they
                            ^^^^^^^
>become available.
>
>The Data Compression Library for UNIX and MacIntosh is available
>immediately for a cost of $495. PKZip for UNIX is also available for a
                           ^^^^
>shareware registration fee of $87.
                               ^^^
 [...]

Here is a fine example of exploitation.  ASi and PKWare are intending
to capitalize on the widespread use of a "standard" DOS shareware program.
Of course, this means the users, WHO SET THE "STANDARD" BY CHOOSING THE
REASONABLY PRICED SHAREWARE PRODUCT, will now be tapped to pay commercial prices
for the use of those products.  How long will ASi allow PKZip to be cheap
shareware?  Or PKUnzip to be free?  PKZip for Unix at $87 is not priced as
shareware (although there will surely be claims that $87 is cheap in the
overpriced Unix software marketplace).  And porting existing DOS *LIBRARY* code
to Unix or Mac is not expensive these days [it is the GUI that is expensive],
given the ready availability of C [and other language] compilers, so the Data
Comp. Lib. at $495 appears to be an example of "what the traffic will bear".

And an "open" system?  That usually means a freely-available specification
which anyone can implement, even to produce "freeware"!  Will ASi publish the
file format and compression algorithm?  [If it has been published, excuse me,
please, for I have neither seen nor heard of it.]

This would not bug me, except that zip is used so much, and none of that stuff
is available in any other form!  I feel trapped!  Bushwhacked!  Ripped off.

Personally, I'd rather use Unix tar and compress.  While they are not "free",
they are come with Unix and do not represent extra cost items.  DOS should join
the community, and package tar ("open" spec.) and Unix compress (mass usage ==>
very modest price increase, if any, for DOS).  [OS/2 comes with a compression
utility, I believe; is it Unix "compress'?]

A suggested moral: beware accepting "standards" which are not open, even if they
are "free".  Possible connection to "there is no such thing as a 'free' lunch"?

By the way, Tim Meade (author of the original article) is President of ASi, so
his posting was a COMMERCIAL advertisement.  Your net bandwidth has thus gone
to give ASi free advertising, which is being used to raise your prices for
data compression software.  Think about it.  Perhaps ASi should reimburse all
net sites for the costs, by providing free products (;->).

Flame away.  (Of course, a "flame war" over this will only give ASi more free
publicity, so ... what is it worth.)  Is there any interest in a count of
"votes" pro/con the continued use of zip compression?

	oldroyd@wucs1.wustl.edu
[Not affiliated with any software vendors; opinions are my own, and do not
reflect on the views of any of my employers.]
Newsgroups: comp.compression