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Re: regular (aka bsd) compress distribution?



> they often come without a C compiler.  And it's more than just compress

Often? Solaris is the only unix I know of that doesn't come with a
compiler that can build gzip. (Note I did not say a C compiler --
HP/UX ships with a toy for building kernel config files, that is still
enough to build gzip.) And for solaris, you can get binaries of gcc on
the net or on Sun's demo-ware cdrom. SGI may be similar - but I'm
pretty sure they ship gzip (along with gcc, in the stack of cdroms you
get with the machine.)

If you mean non-unix platforms, well, there are DOS, Windows, and
MacOS gzip's available free. I'm sure there's an amiga one on the Fish
disks, if not I'll bug Fred :-) What did I miss? If you *really* want
a CP/M gzip (given that there isn't a CP/M "compress" either, though
there is a *different* lzw based tool) I can give it a shot, but I'll
need some convincing :-)

I think that gzip handles things quite well - read the old format, but
don't write it, so we can bring old data forward. PNG will take a
little longer to catch on, but it's getting there. The compression
technique used in gzip is now an RFC (issued last week, RFC1950,
RFC1951, and RFC1952.)

Consider also: why does debian need to be in the business of helping
unisys make money? Anyone running linux who needs to read compressed
data can already do so, via gzip. If they need to generate
lzw-compressed data, *even if there is a package* they need to talk to
Unisys about licensing, and can build the package themselves. We don't
need to make it easy; we can instead make it easy for people to
*avoid* the problem.

And would people stop using "X11 fonts" as an example? Or do I have to
actually post patches to make xfs use gzip or zlib [zlib is the
*free*, non-gpl'ed, compression library using the algorithm; see
RFC1950 for a pointer to the source.]

(Sorry to rant like this; I just don't like seeing fellow debian
developers get flamed for already doing what I consider the right
thing, and flamed for spurious reasons - I haven't seen a reason
posted yet that the above doesn't refute, nor have I seen a refutation
of the above arguments...)
						_Mark_


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