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Re: BootX and the Stuffit Fiasco.



On Friday 23 February 2001 02:05, Michael Schmitz wrote:
> The politically correct answer: we cannot make boot-floppies depend on a
> non-free tool like StuffIt for its operation. And the chance of ever
> getting a free (as in speech) StuffIt packager for Debian are practically
> nil as you pointed out rather convincingly.

not to mention the fact that for installing linux, .sit is a very bad thing 
to be involved at all. compatability is a problem, because more often than 
not, stuffit expander isnt gonna be on any given mac. many web browsers 
handle on-the-fly decoding of binhex. if bootx were packaged as a binhexed 
self extracting archive, compatabiity problems would be 0, and we be having 
this discussion.

> Sorry, but that's what we get for supporting Linux on closed hardware, for
> which most commercial software is written by companies with a mathing
> mindset. Petition Alladin to open their file format.

Not gonna happen. They have Expander for x86 linux now, even in .deb format. 
That's good enough for Aladdin to feel good about themselves. The format will 
never be opened, although i wish it would, it compresses tighter than even 
bzip2! They have money to make from their Stuffit Deluxe line. 



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