The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz (2000) | Hacker News Reader

The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz (2000)

bbsdocumentary.com

187 pointsnbaksalyar64 comments

Reading this sounds like a hit piece. I don't doubt he drank himself to death. There is an embellishment of events and the author is writing from the perspective as though they/he/she were there.

I am writing this after coming back from the bar with friends. I would actually consider myself someone who drinks too much. I have written code for years, tried and failed on over four startups. I have spent a week in a hospital for suicide and depression. I currently work a cushy job where I make great money and write code that a first year CS student could write.

This man was depressed. He tried to find outlets, self medicate, whatever the garbage we need to say about his actions that we need to say. He needed help. Rather than criticize his failures, lets make a note of how fragile our human psyches are and work towards helping one another cope with our internal battles.

I agree whole heartedly and have been to some of the places you have. One thing I have noticed in some friends and acquaintances who've worked out of depression is that they can attain this loftiness to themselves. They feel superior to those who are where they once were. Once I saw that in real life, I began to extrapolate it to a lot of the comments on the internet that tear down the depressed. Somehow they lose their empathy along the way.

Well, if I had to lose some empathy in order to work myself out of depression, I'd probably be okay with that in the end.

I think your observation has some merit.

I saw the same thing happening with people who lost a lot of weight. I am pretty sure it's a combination of fear to get back to a previous unwanted state and a frame of mind that can't stand the idea of remembering how we once were when looking at someone depressed or overweight.

I have personally witnessed this too, and I also think its because they separate themselves from their former selves.

Its something about becoming a new person.

> They feel superior to those who are where they once were.

This is the thing I don't understand about these people. Once you've experienced depression but somehow you did manage to "leave it behind" you still have the feeling that's there, somewhere, hidden, and only the greatest fool would make fun of it or of people still suffering from it.

It is very simple - depression is like cancer in a sense that it expands and captures/modifies more and more reflexes, thought patterns, habits and other aspects of personality. The single most important thing is to stop trying to be accommodating and understanding to its effects (feeling sorry for yourself), which is needed in order to increase locus of control[1]. Another key part (which comes later) is to absolutely believe and be determined that you're not depressed and that mistakes are just mistakes. So, take lack of compassion and self-identification and you've got it. Still, being a bitter cunt is zillion times better than getting hit by a tram, because you don't care. Also, a lot of chicks just dig guys who are short on empathy, which is a nice reward. And when need be, empathy is extremely easily faked, because people are not very suspicious when they need it.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_self-evaluations

I can't speak for all.. But I don't think they lose their empathy. They learn how to shut it down in certain situation to protect themselves.

This is ire inducing, as is all the comments agreeing anecdoatly. As someone who has came through the other side I would <emphasis>strongly</emphasis> argue that the level of empathy I feel towards friends in a similar predicatment is limitless.

"A man falls down a hole..."

It speaks to the character of the person if they then think of themselves superior to a friend who is fighting a fight they have been through previously.

Nobody is criticizing him and the article most definitely doesn't read "like a hit piece". At least that's not what I got from it, I thought it was very compassionate actually.

Sorry about your problems... I can't say I know what you're talking about because I only had a glimpse of depression, but I understand the feeling of knowing your life isn't going to get better EVER and should preferably end right now.

Thankfully this turned out to be not true, I changed countries and now I'm happier than ever, but this wasn't some revelation that just dawned on me - it was just pure luck and I'm not sure if I could have escaped myself.

Have you already tried moving to a different country? I think there is something wrong with Western Europe, I've always been a happy person before I went there and my happiness returned when I got back home... It's possible that the problem is with the entire western society, so you should probably keep that in mind before you do something stupid. Although correlation doesn't imply causation, of course.

I agree this article doesn't sound like a hit piece. If you want to read one that does, this short statement from Arc's developer is a good read: http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html

This is painful to read. Basically "We had legal disputes with him and now he's dead and I'm happy".

>>http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html what a cheap piece of shit

In contrast to the far overused sugary definition, Phil Katz really was a rock star programmer. He also died a rock star's tragic and pathetic death.

There is probably no line between self and business for a guy like PK. At that time you could build a significant program or even a game singlehandedly. Most likely he obsessively made his better ARC program for its own reward (you could use it for free) and he was surprised both by the commercial success and the subsequent legal attack. Very personal indeed, and if he wasn't already a completely tortured soul, that would be more than enough to take away any shred of sense he had made of the world. Give enough cash and free time to someone who has been cracked like that and he quite easily can end up dead from an existential crisis with no practical boundaries.

Considering this was some 25 years ago now, if he thought about intellectual property issues at all, the mindset at that time was very reasonable in that your source code and executable was considered copyrightable like a book - it didn't matter if it provided the same functionality as someone else's program as long as you wrote the code. Just consider the fate of the original spreadsheet for confirmation of this.

To summarize, before you take any stand against the tragedy that is the life of PK, consider that there is probably a huge concentration of people very much like the early Phil Katz right here on HN. The man simply needed help, and he didn't get it.

An interesting point of view I found via Google:

http://www.esva.net/~thom/philkatz.html

Wow, I had no idea the ARC source was open. IIRC, at the time PKARC and PKZIP were legendary, and the Sea guys got a bad rep from the whole situation. But reading that post and the ARC license now, it sure does look like Katz was a putz.

Exec-PC (huge BBS based in Milwaukee, WI) was full of anti-SEA propaganda in those days, which was just bizarre and I didn't understand why at the time.

I also didn't realize the code was open. If only we had github in BBS form in the 90s.

Using PC Pursuit to packet switch your way to Milwaukee without a long-distance phone call.

> Wow, I had no idea the ARC source was open.

Of course, the ARC source wasn't really "open" in the sense we use the term today. Hence SEA's ability to file a lawsuit against Katz.

On the other hand, the .zip file format really was open in the sense we use the term today.

> So now Phil Katz is dead. He drank himself to death, alone in a motel room, a bottle of booze in his hand and five empties in the room. One can only guess what drove him to such a tragic end, but it is a fitting demise for a man whose professional reputation is based entirely on a lie.

> I can think of no more fitting epitath than the final clause of the original ARC copyright statement:

> "If you fail to abide by the terms of this license, then your conscience will haunt you for the rest of your life."

What a stunningly vindictive and spiteful thing to say.

This is the very first time I've ever heard anyone say "he deserved to die because he stole my code."

(Don't worry, I'm not shooting the messenger! I appreciate your posting this - it's a fascinating look at human nature.)

Putting this in to context, at the time Thom had to basically go under the radar because of all the hate mail and threats he got because of the ARC / PKWare legal battle, supposedly these email threats were prompted in part by Phil himself.

It definitely doesn't make it OK to say "this person deserved to die," but I think it's worth considering it in context, as these people weren't strangers to each other and their actions both had powerful effects on one another.

That does add a lot of context! Thanks for mentioning it. What a bad situation all around.

I'm honestly not sure how you can equivocate a haunted conscience with death.

It wasn't that part that struck me - obviously he wrote the copyright statement long before. What bothered me was "...it is a fitting demise...".

"no more fitting epitaph" != "a fitting demise"

I didn't confuse those two phrases. "a fitting demise" is a direct quote:

> One can only guess what drove him to such a tragic end, but it is a fitting demise for a man whose professional reputation is based entirely on a lie.

(emphasis added)

(FYI, I think you mean equate, not equivocate)

This:

"In a negotiated settlement he again rejected any suggestion of licensing and went for a cash-out settlement. He repaid us for most of our legal bills and promised to stop selling his program sometime in 1988.

Then he fiddled with the file format a bit, renamed it from PKARC to PKZIP, and kept right on selling it. "

is contradicted by this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz

"... settlement of the lawsuit ... under which ... PKWARE paid SEA to obtain a license that allowed the distribution of PKWARE's ARC-compatible programs until January 31, 1989, after which PKWARE would not license, publish or distribute any ARC compatible programs or utilities that process ARC compatible files.

...

After the lawsuit, PKWARE released one last version of his PKARC and PKXARC utilities under the new names "PKPAK" and "PKUNPAK", and from then on concentrated on developing the separate programs PKZIP and PKUNZIP, which were based on new and different file compression techniques."

Wiki also says

"The SEA vs. PKWARE dispute quickly expanded into one of the largest controversies the BBS world ever saw."

Any greybeards care to comment?

I didn't care about the controversy I just remember re-packing all of my files in .zip to save more space on my BBS.

Unfreezing...Melting....OOOO00000oooooo........

That reminds me of ARJ, I have no memory of why, but I was a much bigger fan of ARJ than zip.

Me too. ARJ was easier to use IIRC, specially with muli-volume archives (frequent if you had to split an archive into several diskettes).

I used ARJ mostly, until RAR came in, of course ;)

Did someone forget LHA / LZH?

I wasn't aware of the controversy at the time, but I do remember there being a fairly rapid transition from .ARC to .ZIP on the BBSes I used around that time.

I remember all three formats.

You have to keep in mind the context of the times; there was no Linux yet, almost no one had heard of the internet, and certainly there were no things like the world wide web or wikipedia. No one really knew about open source or the legal fight between SEA and PKWARE. We all switched to PKZIP because it created the same size archive files as ARC and it uncompressed so much faster.

In 1988 I was 14, and really just wanted to play more shareware games. It really didn't matter what format they came in, but if they were in ZIP format, that was great since it took less time to uncompress on a 4.77 MHz processor (yes, you read that correctly - I boosted it to 8 MHz with an 8088 clone chip by NEC called a V20). A few years later it was all moot anyway, since I discovered Linux and everything was using tar/compress or shar (shell archives).

Wow. The memories. I ran the hub for a CAD/CAM and animation themed BBS network. We would switch to the latest, greatest (e.g. PKPAK) almost immediately to reduce phone bills.

You aren't kidding. I'm having NEC V20 flashbacks.

I remember feeling incredibly bad assed as a young teenager prying the old 8088 chip out and slotting in this new processor which came in the strange plastic tube which I bought at some random hole-in-the-wall PC shop in Vancouver. I think I had just read Neuromancer for the first time at that point. It was a definite Future Shock moment for me.

This was about the same time period that companies started suing over "look and feel". One prominent example at the time was Lotus suing (I think) Paperback Software, and also Quarterdeck Software (Quatro Pro). So, when it appeared that the same was happening between Sea and PKware, many BBS operators (at least in the Midwest) dumped Arc for Zip almost overnight. What made it worse was that PKarc was significantly faster than Sea's arc, so it looked like "If you can't compete, then sue". Of course, a lot of the details were kept sealed while the court case was going on, and all people had to go by then was what leaked out.

In the event that anyone happens to be interested in knowing more about the conflict between SEA and PKWARE, here's a pretty solid collection of notes and BBS postings.

http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/S...

> I know that seems strange these days, but back then a lot of software was distributed in source

What is old is new again

You know what's peculiar? Thom Henderson wrote that after Katz's death in 2000. At what point in the last thirteen years would anyone think that distributing source code is strange?

You must not have been there. Back when windows was the only OS that mattered, the way you distributed software was as windows binaries. Most users didn't even have a compiler.

"As soon as he started drinking, you could see a little smile on his face. That's when he could talk to people, or tell a joke."

Coders in general are susceptible to alcohol for these kinds of reasons. Add in flexi hours (hey it doesn't matter what time I show up as long as I ship code, right?), and it's practically the ideal job for a functioning alcoholic.

I've seen dozens of fellow programmers slip down the slope. It's particularly bad in the financial sector in London, where "trader culture" of hard drinking, drugs and women is seen as acceptable. Usually it's well concealed until early to mid-thirties. Often their situation rapidly degenerates after a relationship breakup or family bereavement. What's fun and social when you're with your friends in your 20s isn't so much when you're 35 and lonely.

It's striking how casual and uninformed the general attitude to this drug is in our industry, e.g. http://zachholman.com/posts/how-github-works-creativity/

It's a lonely occupation.

Well, it's not just in our industry. Alcohol is basically not treated as a drug by society. But its abuse have consecuences as bad as any other "hard" drug.

"Clad in nothing but underwear, he was suffering from uncontrollable hiccups and burdened by a horribly swollen stomach." While some internal organs were destroyed and he was slowly dying. Terrible.

That said, if not alcohol he would have found something else. The problem was not the drug itself.

Some personality types gravitate towards drug abuse and some types gravitate towards programming as a primary activity. The overlap between the two sets is very significant.

Add in money and a tendency to have few friends, and almost certainly no SO, and the wonder is there aren't even more casualties. Though there are a huge number of people who get older and wonder where exactly it all went wrong.

The other problem, apart from alcohol per se, was the fact that he never had a smile on his face when sober. If alcohol wasn't available, he would still have been tortured.

Well, a big text file isn't a documentary. Download this link for an actual documentary on the subject:

http://www.esva.net/~thom/arczip.wmv

The takeaway is that Katz optimized existing code, his mother ran the pkzip business, they defamed the arczip guys, and Katz himself died a paranoid, drunken wreck. The problem with the doc is that pretty much nobody is there to defend Katz. It's an old war, and really doesn't matter now.

This story might be a bit biased in favor of Katz. Read this take, too:

http://www.esva.net/~thom/baker.html

The team that owned ARC was even smaller than Katz's, and PKARC was based directly on ARC.

Whoa this line really stands out from the end of Thom Henderson's (creator of ARC) take on Phil's death:

I can think of no more fitting epitath than the final clause of the original ARC copyright statement:

"If you fail to abide by the terms of this license, then your conscience will haunt you for the rest of your life."

(Apparently PKARC was blatantly ripped off of ARC and Phil refused to license ARC.)

I recommend 'BBS - the Documentary' by Jason Scott, episode #8. It should be available on YouTube. It is about the SEA vs. PKWARE controversy.

I logged in to read about CodeCombat. Instead, I read this submission. Mostly because it was sitting there forlornly with no comments. Alcoholism is really painful. It in no way lessens the excellence of the contribution of talented people; it only makes us cherish them more. We just don't get to help often because the destruction happens in a way that is inaccessible to outsiders.

That's brutal, and hard to read, especially when I've experience shreds of that loneliness, that unreasonable fear that you have nowhere and no one to go to.

Each morning I read a note to myself: "The high score isn't money, it's people who love you".

Katz talked freer, laughed harder, stayed up longer and dreamed bigger when he had a drink in his hand, friends say. Drinking brought a painfully shy man out of his shell.

I wonder if alcohol served him as an unfortunate remedy for his introverted person.

And on unrelated note:

He got real good at optimizing programs, and he learned to get the job done with the least amount of instructions and running times.

I like the culture of code bumping back in the day. Although, we now live in a time of abundant CPU cycles and memory, there's still value in that, even above many layers of abstraction. Sadly, increasing number of programmers do not care or even aware of their programs' resource footprint on the hardware.

Re: the remedy for introverts, yes.

I'm a strong introvert and I find that a few drinks makes me feel like what I suspect an extrovert feels like. Personally, I'd much rather socialize with a few drinks in me; and if there's a large group involved, it's almost mandatory for me to enjoy myself at all!

Not sure about other industries, but console game development is still pretty much about that - but more nowadays about caches, and optimal (but not flexible) data structures/memory allocation/etc and largely lately gpu, batching, etc.

I thought this was incredibly sad. It reminded me of my best friend during high school, who took his own life last year:

http://www.desototimes.com/articles/2012/12/18/news/doc50cfc...

The brightest of us are the hardest to reach and the most difficult to persuade, but they're also the most painful to lose.

To anyone reading this: if someone that you care about needs help, don't wait until tomorrow. Don't make excuses. Don't fuck around.

"I can think of no more fitting epitaph than the final clause of the original ARC copyright statement: 'If you fail to abide by the terms of this license, then your conscience will haunt you for the rest of your life.'"

Deep.

Being young, I stumbled on PK Ware once while doing a task for a job. I started inquiring about their service, and was slightly rude to a rep. The conversation went something like...

Me: Why would I pay 40 dollars for zipping software I get for free? You guys are totally late to the game, winzip and winrar already exist.

Rep: ....... Yea, we started the industry, and our founder died from alcohol abuse...

Me: Good joke...

.......

It's a sad tale indeed.

Oh gosh, I didn't know he had died. This makes me very sad for some reason.

Phil was my teenage icon. Maybe he wasn't such a great genius, but he did a lot of money out of almost nothing, and never bothered himself much about anything.

It's really sad to see someone bright self-destruct this way, but I need to say I found the exotic dancer's name, Chastity, almost funny.

to me this is a glimpse of the computer world near 2000. the idea of file compression just becoming popularized.

these days, every time a startup reaches an IPO, we get a movie, book or long series of articles. we learn the guys revolutionizing social media are total basketcases

I used to work at PKWARE back in 2007-2010, and his legacy was rarely discussed by everyone was well aware. Seemed like a bad ass to me.

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