Re: MacShrinkit

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <149N6.60570$ff.473405@news-server.bigpond.net.au>,
ralmin <xbiber@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
 
>> My problem with using pkzip is that pkware has a vested interest in the
>> format.  In otherwords, they may change the format at any time and for
>> any reason.
> 
> PKWare has little power over the format any more. There are too many varied
> programs which all use the same standard.
 
Perhaps a little piece of history would be enlighening here: PLWare
started out by offering the shareware programs PKARC and PKXARC,
which mimiced an earlier archive program, ARC, by SEA, except that
PKARC/XARC was many times faster.  A later version of PK(X)ARC added
a new compression algorithm which also compressed better.  At that
point, SEA sued PKWare for using the ARC archive file format, which
SEA claimed was proprietary.  SEA won the case: PKWare was forced to
stop offering archivers for the ARC archive format.  But SEA lost the
users: some time later, when PKWare instead offered PKZIP/UNZIP along
with the new ZIP archive format, most users stopped using the ARC
archive format.