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Re: [bug-inetutils] deprectae .gz and only distribute .xz tarballs
From: |
Alfred M. Szmidt |
Subject: |
Re: [bug-inetutils] deprectae .gz and only distribute .xz tarballs |
Date: |
Sat, 31 Mar 2012 04:49:26 -0400 |
fredag den 30 mars 2012 klockan 12:23 skrev Alfred M. Szmidt detta:
> > Any objections?
>
> Yes, I object. "xz" is not sufficiently well spread in default
> system installations yet. Use "bz2" if you must change. That gives
> better block robustness. Changing for size reduction is a
> questionable motivation. Changing just because others have done so
> is even worse.
>
> xz is spread enough within the GNU project more so than bz2, and some
> projects have stoppped distributing gz tarballs completely. But as
> compromise, since your objection is immensly valuable, lets distribute
> both gz and xz tarballs.
The observations I base my wish upon are these:
* "GNU tar" and "FreeBSD tar" support compress, gzip, bzip2, and xz.
* "OpenBSD tar" supports only compress, gzip, and bzip2.
* "Solaris tar" supports no compression whatsoever.
Therefore I am pleased that you let us generate gzip-compressed archives
in addition to the, admittedly, more modern xz-compressed archives.
We are a group of hackers, all opinions weigh in, and if a decision
that we make makes life easier for everyone then that is the decision
to make.
Interesting thing to note is that tar is not part of POSIX.