Date: Sun, 10 Nov 1996 14:41:43 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Malcolm Taylor <malcolm AT manawatu DOT gen DOT nz>
Cc: "John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>, fighteer AT cs DOT com, djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Why not to use 'tar' before packing DJGPP?
In-Reply-To: <199611090739.UAA04820@papaioea.manawatu.gen.nz>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961110143406.8417D-100000@is>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Malcolm Taylor wrote:

> Anyway if the point is to reduce the size of the archives, then why 
> not go for a better archiver? The compression algorithm in zip is 
> around 3-4 years old technologically speaking, and there are many far 
> better archivers available today that dispense the need for tarring 

IMHO, better compression ratios is not always good enough reason to switch
to another compressor.  Do we really think everybody out there (GNU sites,
SimTel sites) are so stupid in that they continue using this ``old''
compression technology?  Do savings in disk storage (which is about the
cheapest asset nowadays) indeed justify turning our back on compatibility? 
I'm not sure. 

And btw, at least in my book, availability of free source code to the 
(un)compressors we use is also very important.  (How else would I be able 
to make UnZip LFN-aware in less than a day?)  AFAIK, most ``modern'' 
compressors don't comply to this requirement.