bzip2 -- no longer non-us?

[Mark Eichin <eichin@cygnus.com>]

http://www.muraroa.demon.co.uk  has a new version of bzip (a
compressor that is stronger than gzip) -- the old one (0.21) was in
non-us because it used arithmetic coding which was pattented in the
us; the new one, called bzip2, is:

   o Patent-free!  (I hope).  bzip-0.21 used arithmetic coding; bzip2 uses
     Huffman coding, which is generally regarded as non-problematic from a
     patent standpoint.  Both programs are based on the Burrows-Wheeler
     transform, but, as far as I know, that's not patented either.

and a few other cool things.

This could be potntially useful in boot kits in particular...


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