hpr0865 :: Desktop Transparency

The history of Desktop Transparency

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Hosted by Deltaray on Thursday, 2011-11-24 is flagged as Explicit and is released under a CC-BY-SA license.
Tags: free software, rxvt, background image, transparent background, Enlightenment, translucent window, Berlin. Comments: 3.

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Duration: 00:14:44
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Part of the series: general.

Deltaray talks about the (true) history of Desktop Transparency.

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Comment #1 posted on 2011-11-30 03:46:41 by dish

Cmdr Taco!!

I totally did not know it was Cmdr Taco's idea! What a great episode! thanks!

Comment #2 posted on 2011-12-10 21:41:33 by JonathanRRogers

Confusion about ZIP vs. ARC

While the events related to transparency match what I remember, I think Deltaray confused the ZIP and ARC file formats. What I've been able to find indicates that Phil Katz created the ZIP format specifically to be different from the ARC format after he lost a lawsuit brought by SEA. If all the Wikipedia articles and sources they cite are wrong about this, there must be a deep conspiracy indeed.

Comment #3 posted on 2012-01-30 15:19:12 by Deltaray

Phil Katz was a code thief

@JonathanRRogers: I was kinda generalizing that Phil Katz is a code thief. While ZIP may be a different format and algorithm, he got into the whole thing by dishonorable means and I don't think he should be given as much credit as he does and more credit should go to Thom, whose efforts where effectively derailed by Phil. The point is, there is a lot more to the story than what is mentioned on Wikipedia. My source material is episode 8 of the BBS: The documentary, by Jason Scott:

https://www.archive.org/details/BBS.The.Documentary

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