[tz] [PROPOSED PATCH 2/2] Use lz format for new tarball

[Random832]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2016, at 11:24, Deborah Goldsmith wrote:
> As far as I can tell, lzip is only used on Linux. There are no tools that
> ship with macOS or Windows (out of the box) that can decode it.

Doesn't ship with "Linux" out of the box, either. At least, on my
machine it's not present and I've done nothing special to exclude it...
Ubuntu has a half dozen packages for different versions of it (most of
which seem to be in "universe" rather than the main distribution), with
no clear guidance on which one I should want to install. [It's clear
enough, to be fair, what the actual differences between them *are*, but
it's not clear if these differences have any impact on performance or
not, and overall I'm completely mystified at the decision to *package*
them.]

> Adopting lzip as the primary format at this point seems like a statement
> that only Linux matters.

While it seems to be a bit bleeding-edge, I don't see how it's less so
for Linux than for other operating systems. Also I don't see why a
"primary" format means that only platforms supporting that format, 'out
of the box' or otherwise, matter, while other distribution formats are
still fully supported. Seems like it creates a bit of a chicken-and-egg
dilemma towards ever migrating anyone to new formats.