Re: Why aren't ELPA packages compressed?

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Tue, 05 May 2015, Tom Tromey wrote:

> When I wrote package.el, one goal was that installing a package
> would not require any external tool. So, e.g., that is why I chose
> tar archives and not some other format -- tar-mode.el can unpack
> them without a helper.

>> From NEWS I see that zlib was added in 24. So, that's the reason --
> at the time it wasn't available. It sounds like it is optional,
> though, which seems like a problem for users.

As was previously remarked, gzip could be used if Emacs isn't linked
against zlib. And I wonder if there are still any systems nowadays
where neither gzip nor zlib isn't readily available.

Ulrich