All of the following is simply my opinion on this, so take it for what
it's worth.
I first read about this lawsuit on the "Voice on the Net" mailing list
last night. The reaction has been uniformly negative toward Camelot.
Even prior to this, many had complained that Digiphone doesn't seem to
work properly, and as someone else pointed out, they are the only
"phone on the 'net" type product that does not offer a free demo
version at this point in time (and there are probably four or five
other such products now).
I think this whole situation could really blow up in their face. As
I posted to the mailing list last night, there was once a company
called System Enhancement Associates (SEA). Anyone remember them?
They developed the original ARC program, which was one of the first
file compression and library type programs (similar to the ZIP, ARJ,
and LHARC programs in use on the PC platform today).
About a decade ago (give or take a couple of years), SEA filed a
lawsuit against the author of PKZIP, claiming that he had stolen some
of the code from their ARC compression program for use in his PKARC
program (a predecessor to PKZIP). He denied it, and then proceeded
to release PKZIP, which beat the pants off of ARC as far as
compression goes (and which was incompatible with ARC). But the
fallout lasted - many computers users shunned ARC and SEA they way
they would the devil himself. SEA was the talk of the net (at
least on Fidonet at that time) and almost none of the talk was
favorable. In a relatively short time, ARC fell into disuse and
almost everyone was using the ZIP format. Today, hardly anyone
remembers ARC or SEA, while PKZIP (and other programs utilizing the
ZIP format) are used thousands of times daily.
There is also a problem with claims being made for Digiphone that
simply cannot be supported. For example, if you go to their World
Wide Web page, the first statement on the page reads as follows:
"DigiPhone is the de facto voice communication software for the
Internet."
I fail to see how they can possibly substantiate this claim. IPhone
has more users, and in my opinion seems to work fairly well (it's even
been known to work on a '386DX 40MHz system, which Vocaltec would say
is not supported). And as I mentioned, there are several other such
products available now.
(By the way, the Web page mentioned above is at this URL:
planeteers.com
The potential problem that I see for Camelot and Third Planet Software
is that this lawsuit is likely to become a topic of conversation in
various forums on the 'net. Wherever it is discussed, people are also
going to comment on the quality of the Digiphone product, and if those
comments are anything like some of the ones I've seen so far, this
is NOT going to help boost their sales!
And to attempt to clarify the issue, the information I have is that
Mr. Pulver did NOT pirate the Digiphone software. Rather, what
happened was that he posted a full duplex driver for Soundblaster 16
cards on an FTP site as a service to users who had this card, and who
had been unable to obtain the driver directly. As soon as he was
notified that there was a copyright problem, he removed the driver
from his system (by the way, some users have reported that this driver
doesn't even work!). But what they also wanted, and what Mr. Pulver
refused to provide, was a list of users who had downloaded the
driver. Now, as some of you may be aware, most FTP transactions are
"anonymous", so I have some doubt that Mr. Pulver even COULD provide
this information. But even if he could, he apparently feels that this
is not something he SHOULD do (I will not speculate on his reasons,
but wouldn't be surprised if they involve privacy considerations in
some form).
And then, quoting a portion of a press release (that was quoted on the
mailing list):
"In the same lawsuit, Third Planet Publishing has sued Performance
Systems, Inc., dba PSINet ('PSINet') the Internet access provider who
facilitate Pulver's World Wide Web Page on the Internet, and who offer
Vocaltec's product to their customers. PSINet refused to disconnect
Pulver from the World Wide Web despite being advised of the complaint.
Third Planet is seeking damages."
I think many Internet users will see this as a vindictive use of the
judical process, to try and get at a user by putting pressure on his
Internet Service Provider, who obviously cannot be responsible for
the data sent and received by their users. Also, bear in mind that
Mr. Pulver HAD removed the software from his system, so no purpose
would have been served by cutting off his Internet service. In my
opinion, this was simply an attempt to force Mr. Pulver's ISP to
carry out a punishment on behalf of Third Planet Software (something
NO respectable ISP would ever consider!).
I have a feeling that all this is going to come back and bite Camelot
and Third Planet Software in a big way. The stuff is just starting to
hit the fan, and if they are smart they will QUICKLY drop the lawsuit,
apologize to Mr. Pulver and especially to his ISP, and keep their
fingers crossed that the damage hasn't spread too far already.
Just my $0.02 worth...
Jack |
