To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Subject: Re: Linux Kernel Source Compression
Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 11:58:50 -0700 (PDT)
Organization: Mostly alphabetical, except Q, with we do not fancy
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References: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0605211028100.4037@p34> <200605212003.32063.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
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Followup to:  <200605212003.32063.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
By author:    Alistair John Strachan <s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> Somebody needs to make lzma userspace tools (like p7zip) faster, not crash, 
> and behave like a regular UNIX program. Then we need a patch to GNU tar to 
> emerge, and for it to persist for at least 4 years. Then maybe people will 
> adopt this format..
> 

The patch to GNU tar isn't necessary.  If the "not crash, and behave
like a regular UNIX program" can be satisfied, I'd be happy to support
7zip/lzma on kernel.org.  Unfortunately, as far as I can tell:

a) right now the standard encapsulation format for LZMA is 7zip, which
only comes in the form of hideously ugly code.  lzma-tools are
cleaner, but incompatible.

b) Even lzma-tools relies on a shell script to behave like a Unix
program.

Personally, I would like to suggest adding LZMA capability to gzip.
The gzip format already has support for multiple compression formats.

	-hpa
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