Re: lzip support

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008, Jan Engelhardt wrote:

> > I see that LZIP is GPL licensed and is pretty small, and with just
> > one author.
>
> Sometimes, simplicity is the key. And I do not think that having
> exactly 1.0 authors makes a project insignificant.

Actually I like the "1.0 authors" since it makes the copyright issues 
more clear and means that there is someone empowered to update the 
license or defend the copyright if necessary.  In contrast FSF GNU 
projects require that all authors sign a contract with the FSF to 
assign copyrights.  That is a tedious task.

I like simplicity as well.  From my point of view 'gzip' is an ideal 
package other than its compression ratio.

> > If automake now supports 'lzip', why does it not also offer to support 7-Zip',
> > 'srpm', 'zoo', 'arc', and the many other possible archiving formats so that
> > confusion of the user base can become complete?
>
> I would say because 7zip, ZOO and ARC (what's with these 1990s packers?)
> do not support UNIX owners nor permissions (required for the beloved +x bit
> on scripts.).

It was my impression that Automake adopted LZMA utils without fully 
evaluating the impact.  Introducing a new archive format is really 
quite a big deal since it impacts many thousands of open source users 
well into the future.  As it turned out, LZMA utils conflicted with 
another available LZMA utility, which caused some problems for FreeBSD 
and likely other distributions as well.

My own package is now distributing .lzma packages.  This is a big deal 
for it moving forward since changing the package format will break 
something.  OS distributions are only recently becoming used to .lzma 
and have had to update scripts and tools to deal with it.

Due to the preponderance of distribution formats, the actual amount of 
data on ftp sites is dramatically increasing rather than decreasing 
since packages feel that they must produce archives in every possible 
format.  If an archive format was ever offered before, the feeling is 
that it must continue to be offered for the rest of time.

It would be useful if the Automake project would thoroughly research 
all issues and come up with a plan which reduces total world impact. 
We need a Green Solution which avoids wasteful practices which surely 
increase global warming and further tax our dwindling fossil fuel 
supply.  These are all factors which should be considered:

  * Number of files needing to be uploaded to distribution sites, or
    mirrored.

  * Individual file size.

  * Utility implementation license and copyrights.

  * Utility portability.

  * Utility performance and reliability.

  * Utility usage complexity.

  * Utility long-term maintenance expectations.

  * Effort to integrate into established packaging and source
    distribution systems.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/