From: zevans@nyx.cs.du.edu (Zack Evans) Subject: Re: What are the .z files? Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 20:25:08 GMT
In article <1993Apr14.183106.19013@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> zevans@nyx.cs.du.edu (Zack Evans) writes:
>Yes, they are gzipped...GNU zip - check archie for availability. If
>Richard Stallman ever made a mistake it was starting to use gzip IMHO,
>what was wrong with .tar.Z?
Well I have _already had three emails about this so I'll reply to my own
post to save /usr filling :->
The people who emailed me pointed out that gzip is a darn site more
effective at compression than compress is. I can see the importance of
this when Gnu rely so much on the net for distribution.
What I meant was using a 'proprietory' (although that term doesn't apply
to copylefted stuff very well) compression system is dangerously like the
sort of thing that Microsoft would do IMHO. At the time of posting I
didn't realise that gzip was a better program anyway, so I shall retract
my earlier statement.
Zack