ZIP file format history
The ZIP file format was originally created by Phil
Katz, founder of PKWARE. Katz publicly released
technical documentation on the ZIP file format, along with
the first version of his PKZIP archiver, in January
1989.
ARC was distributed not only as the executable software,
but also its C source code.
Katz had copied ARC and converted the compression
routines from C to optimised assembler code, which made
it much faster. SEA initially tried to license Katz's
archiver, called PKARC, but Katz refused. SEA
then sued Katz for copyright infringement and won.
During settlement, Katz still refused to license PKARC
to SEA, instead agreeing to pay SEA's legal fees
and stop selling PKARC. He then went on to create his own
file format PKZIP, and the .ZIP format he designed
was a much more efficient compression format than .ARC.
Once PKZIP was released, many users abandoned .ARC
because of its slower performance and because Katz had
successfully convinced them that he was the "good guy"
being unfairly treated by an evil corporation.
|
