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In Early Life, the tone and the order of events presented still implies that PK was a victim of SEA, rather than vice versa. Why is the word "chagrin" used? SEA distributed standard source code which would compile on any machine: portability was the goal. PK made a faster version but was machine specific, detracting from portability. He also refused to licence the code he had copied from SEA. He also sold his version of ARC, directly competing with SEA. It would be quite accurate to say that PK stole work from SEA and sold it as his own. Whether this made SEA embarrased or annoyed is a POV. The fact is they suffered financial loss from unfair competition (and probably illegal, but PK settled before the suit was decided).
"he was forced to change the program..." In fact Phil Katz agreed to settle out of court, when PK realised he had no chance after hearing the testimony from an expert witness. This is tantamount to PK admitting he had infringed copyright.
In the sentence "It had been discovered that although...", I don't understand the context of the word "although". "although SEA distributed source code they didn't expect anyone to rip it off and start selling their own version" - is that what was meant?
Is it enough to say the debacle was extremely controversial, when the facts clearly show PK was guilty of theft?
PKZIP therefore, was far from the result of innovation and fair competition, more the result of PK's failed attempt to steal code from SEA.
This page presents as complete a (neutral) description of events as I can find History of Computer Compression. There is a less neutral page from the side of SEA here Ben Baker Remembers Phil Katz, and from Thom Henderson himself Thom Henderson on Phil Katz. This is a library of material here CONTROVERSY: LAWSUITS: SEA vs. PKWARE
The folklore of Phil Katz is that he pioneered shareware, more or less invented compression for the internet, and took on the big guys and won. In reality none of these are true. OK, so PK had a tragic death. But Thom Henderson was the true pioneer and innocent victim in all this, and he doesn't even have a wiki page. The tragedy of PK does not concern me as much as the injustice done to Thom Henderson by painting PK as a hero, rather than what he was, a popular thief.
FWIW I have no connection with any of these people.
86.130.206.129 13:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I've always known Winzip's publisher as Nico Mak Computing, and had never heard of "Nicosoft" before. I don't think that's ever been the company's name. Someone who knows better than me should check this out.
NB: They recently (?) changed their name to Winzip International, and there's not mention of previous names on their website.
What is the source that was used for his cause of death? Hemorrhage into a chronically inflamed pancreas is possible, but so is acute pancreatitis with hemorrhagic necrosis. JFW | T@lk 21:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I have restored the Thom Henderson link. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a fan club. Sometimes that means that when people have said nasty things about each other, we discuss or link to that, as long as said things aren't libelous or demonstrably false. Thom Henderson's perspective on Phil Katz is nearly unique, having come into direct legal conflict with him, and his perspective is clearly relevant. Last time I checked, "rude" wasn't a reason not to link to a primary or secondary source. Nandesuka 13:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
There ought to be some dates for events other than death; surely the legal documents cited establish at least some years.
obviously they are still going and obviously they aren't owned by katz anymore, i had a quick look at their site and it doesn't say anything obvious about what type of company they are.
so does anyone have any information on what pkware is today and how they became that? Plugwash 21:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
PKWARE is mentioned three times, but there is no hyperlink. Searching Wikipedia on it gets redirected to PKZIP. That page does not deal with PKWARE either, aside from a few confusing comments. It makes sense for this page to have a PKware section, and there should be a separate PKWare page too.
PKWARE was founded by Phil Katz and continued on after his death. In April, 2000, PKWare's website said "The family of Phil Katz and the employees of PKWARE, Inc. wish to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and condolences. To those of us who knew Phil as a friend, mentor and employer, we will greatly miss his caring, generosity, help and kindness. We who knew him both personally and professionally will always view him as a gentle and special human being who will be sadly missed."
So it was clearly his company, and his employees, and it continued after his death as the same company. I don't know who owns it, how ownership was transferred, or who was running the company at the time of his death. I know he was not very active in the company's affairs at the time of his death, and don't know how much, if any, of the company he still owned. It's still a privately held company, so it's not clear whether his family retains any share of ownership. The only thing that is clear is that he did have a family.
Ascent Solutions, Inc (ASIware) was a vendor that made PKZip compatible software for platforms such as VM/CMS, MVS, (both mainframe), VMS, UNIX, Mac, and AS/400. They were partners with PKware, and sold solutions with PKware's blessing. ASi's 1996 website, www.asiware.com, said "In 1992, ASi entered an agreement with PKWARE Inc. to port its successful data compression product, PKZIP from DOS to new platforms including MVS, UNIX and Macintosh. The first version of PKZIP UNIX was released by ASi in October 1992 and by February 1993, it introduced its first beta version for the MVS." The current company bearing their name has no relationship with the former company, and asiware.com now gets redirected to pkware.com, so it's reasonably clear that most of their current products for other platforms came from ASi. z/OS and i5/OS are the current names for MVS and OS/400, so the products sold should be the current versions of ASi's software. ASi may have been a bigger company than PKWARE by then, so it might have been ASi that bought PKWARE, or vice versa, but the name PKWARE had more cachet, so it made sense as a company name either way. Since PKWARE was late to market with a Windows version, and its market share was minor and shrinking (no pun intended) compared to WinZip, it's doubtful that PKWARE could have survived on its Windows product, so the current company most likely survives on corporate sales for other platforms. -- Hagrinas
I think Phil Katz graduated from UW-Milwaukee not UW-Madison. Two of the external links verify that. Miaers 22:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
BEGIN SIDE NOTE This is not my recollection of what happened. As I recall SEA claimed that Katz had no right under copyright laws, 1) to have his PK software write a file using the .ARC file-structure and format; and 2) to copy or mimic the "..look and feel.." of ARC. This created an outrage among the software users who abandoned use of SEA software in protest. This was discussed extensively on various FidoNet groups in the mid to late 1980s. I do not recall any mention of pirated source code and am highly skeptical of that allegation. See < http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/> for more information. In particular, see < http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/sea.txt> -vpd 10/14/07 END SIDE NOTE
Does anyone have any evidence or documented report on this? It's not exactly a pleasant thing to say about him. It may well be true, but I think there should be a weasel words warning here. -- 193.130.175.129 ( talk) 12:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
It's probably not obvious to the novice reader how the ZIP format became part of Windows. Landroo ( talk) 12:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Image:Phillip Katz.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 14:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I rated this article in its current form as "Start" class. Some thoughts for improvement:
In short, one could probably write a very fascinating book on the life of this gifted, but troubled, individual. The Wikipedia article should serve as an introduction to this hypothetical work. -- llywrch ( talk) 15:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Footnote #1 in the article is now pointing to a dead link. PKWare has evidently removed the Phil-Katz page from their website. However, I can get to the page through archive.org at this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20101001181829/http://www.pkware.com/about-us/phil-katz . I don't know how to change the footnote to be in compliance with Wikipedia standards, so if anyone reading this knows how to change the footnote so it takes someone to PKWare's old page on archive.org, I'd appreciate if you would do that. Thanks. Furchild ( talk) 03:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The cause of death is cited as "chronic alcoholism", but other Wiki languages have "accute alcoholism", and so has text I googled that seems copied from an older version of the article. Unfortunately, the two links point to a 404 and a paywall, so I can't check the original cause (also can't find on Google). Jalwikip ( talk) 11:56, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
In Early Life, the tone and the order of events presented still implies that PK was a victim of SEA, rather than vice versa. Why is the word "chagrin" used? SEA distributed standard source code which would compile on any machine: portability was the goal. PK made a faster version but was machine specific, detracting from portability. He also refused to licence the code he had copied from SEA. He also sold his version of ARC, directly competing with SEA. It would be quite accurate to say that PK stole work from SEA and sold it as his own. Whether this made SEA embarrased or annoyed is a POV. The fact is they suffered financial loss from unfair competition (and probably illegal, but PK settled before the suit was decided).
"he was forced to change the program..." In fact Phil Katz agreed to settle out of court, when PK realised he had no chance after hearing the testimony from an expert witness. This is tantamount to PK admitting he had infringed copyright.
In the sentence "It had been discovered that although...", I don't understand the context of the word "although". "although SEA distributed source code they didn't expect anyone to rip it off and start selling their own version" - is that what was meant?
Is it enough to say the debacle was extremely controversial, when the facts clearly show PK was guilty of theft?
PKZIP therefore, was far from the result of innovation and fair competition, more the result of PK's failed attempt to steal code from SEA.
This page presents as complete a (neutral) description of events as I can find History of Computer Compression. There is a less neutral page from the side of SEA here Ben Baker Remembers Phil Katz, and from Thom Henderson himself Thom Henderson on Phil Katz. This is a library of material here CONTROVERSY: LAWSUITS: SEA vs. PKWARE
The folklore of Phil Katz is that he pioneered shareware, more or less invented compression for the internet, and took on the big guys and won. In reality none of these are true. OK, so PK had a tragic death. But Thom Henderson was the true pioneer and innocent victim in all this, and he doesn't even have a wiki page. The tragedy of PK does not concern me as much as the injustice done to Thom Henderson by painting PK as a hero, rather than what he was, a popular thief.
FWIW I have no connection with any of these people.
86.130.206.129 13:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I've always known Winzip's publisher as Nico Mak Computing, and had never heard of "Nicosoft" before. I don't think that's ever been the company's name. Someone who knows better than me should check this out.
NB: They recently (?) changed their name to Winzip International, and there's not mention of previous names on their website.
What is the source that was used for his cause of death? Hemorrhage into a chronically inflamed pancreas is possible, but so is acute pancreatitis with hemorrhagic necrosis. JFW | T@lk 21:31, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I have restored the Thom Henderson link. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a fan club. Sometimes that means that when people have said nasty things about each other, we discuss or link to that, as long as said things aren't libelous or demonstrably false. Thom Henderson's perspective on Phil Katz is nearly unique, having come into direct legal conflict with him, and his perspective is clearly relevant. Last time I checked, "rude" wasn't a reason not to link to a primary or secondary source. Nandesuka 13:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
There ought to be some dates for events other than death; surely the legal documents cited establish at least some years.
obviously they are still going and obviously they aren't owned by katz anymore, i had a quick look at their site and it doesn't say anything obvious about what type of company they are.
so does anyone have any information on what pkware is today and how they became that? Plugwash 21:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
PKWARE is mentioned three times, but there is no hyperlink. Searching Wikipedia on it gets redirected to PKZIP. That page does not deal with PKWARE either, aside from a few confusing comments. It makes sense for this page to have a PKware section, and there should be a separate PKWare page too.
PKWARE was founded by Phil Katz and continued on after his death. In April, 2000, PKWare's website said "The family of Phil Katz and the employees of PKWARE, Inc. wish to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and condolences. To those of us who knew Phil as a friend, mentor and employer, we will greatly miss his caring, generosity, help and kindness. We who knew him both personally and professionally will always view him as a gentle and special human being who will be sadly missed."
So it was clearly his company, and his employees, and it continued after his death as the same company. I don't know who owns it, how ownership was transferred, or who was running the company at the time of his death. I know he was not very active in the company's affairs at the time of his death, and don't know how much, if any, of the company he still owned. It's still a privately held company, so it's not clear whether his family retains any share of ownership. The only thing that is clear is that he did have a family.
Ascent Solutions, Inc (ASIware) was a vendor that made PKZip compatible software for platforms such as VM/CMS, MVS, (both mainframe), VMS, UNIX, Mac, and AS/400. They were partners with PKware, and sold solutions with PKware's blessing. ASi's 1996 website, www.asiware.com, said "In 1992, ASi entered an agreement with PKWARE Inc. to port its successful data compression product, PKZIP from DOS to new platforms including MVS, UNIX and Macintosh. The first version of PKZIP UNIX was released by ASi in October 1992 and by February 1993, it introduced its first beta version for the MVS." The current company bearing their name has no relationship with the former company, and asiware.com now gets redirected to pkware.com, so it's reasonably clear that most of their current products for other platforms came from ASi. z/OS and i5/OS are the current names for MVS and OS/400, so the products sold should be the current versions of ASi's software. ASi may have been a bigger company than PKWARE by then, so it might have been ASi that bought PKWARE, or vice versa, but the name PKWARE had more cachet, so it made sense as a company name either way. Since PKWARE was late to market with a Windows version, and its market share was minor and shrinking (no pun intended) compared to WinZip, it's doubtful that PKWARE could have survived on its Windows product, so the current company most likely survives on corporate sales for other platforms. -- Hagrinas
I think Phil Katz graduated from UW-Milwaukee not UW-Madison. Two of the external links verify that. Miaers 22:13, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
BEGIN SIDE NOTE This is not my recollection of what happened. As I recall SEA claimed that Katz had no right under copyright laws, 1) to have his PK software write a file using the .ARC file-structure and format; and 2) to copy or mimic the "..look and feel.." of ARC. This created an outrage among the software users who abandoned use of SEA software in protest. This was discussed extensively on various FidoNet groups in the mid to late 1980s. I do not recall any mention of pirated source code and am highly skeptical of that allegation. See < http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/> for more information. In particular, see < http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/sea.txt> -vpd 10/14/07 END SIDE NOTE
Does anyone have any evidence or documented report on this? It's not exactly a pleasant thing to say about him. It may well be true, but I think there should be a weasel words warning here. -- 193.130.175.129 ( talk) 12:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
It's probably not obvious to the novice reader how the ZIP format became part of Windows. Landroo ( talk) 12:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Image:Phillip Katz.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot ( talk) 14:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
I rated this article in its current form as "Start" class. Some thoughts for improvement:
In short, one could probably write a very fascinating book on the life of this gifted, but troubled, individual. The Wikipedia article should serve as an introduction to this hypothetical work. -- llywrch ( talk) 15:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Footnote #1 in the article is now pointing to a dead link. PKWare has evidently removed the Phil-Katz page from their website. However, I can get to the page through archive.org at this link: http://web.archive.org/web/20101001181829/http://www.pkware.com/about-us/phil-katz . I don't know how to change the footnote to be in compliance with Wikipedia standards, so if anyone reading this knows how to change the footnote so it takes someone to PKWare's old page on archive.org, I'd appreciate if you would do that. Thanks. Furchild ( talk) 03:39, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
The cause of death is cited as "chronic alcoholism", but other Wiki languages have "accute alcoholism", and so has text I googled that seems copied from an older version of the article. Unfortunately, the two links point to a 404 and a paywall, so I can't check the original cause (also can't find on Google). Jalwikip ( talk) 11:56, 9 March 2020 (UTC)