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

[Brian Inglis]

On 2016-09-01 12:56, Deborah Goldsmith wrote:
>> On Aug 30, 2016, at 5:21 PM, Paul Eggert <eggert at cs.ucla.edu>
>> wrote:
>> Deborah Goldsmith wrote:
>>> What is the goal for making these changes to the distribution
>>> format?
>> 2. Shrinking the distribution tarball. This matters less, but while
>> we're doing (1) we might as well do (2). Not everyone is as
>> well-off and well-connected as Apple and UCLA.
> Is there any evidence anyone cares about the minor differences we’re
> discussing? The difference between bz2 (widely supported) and lz (not
> as widely supported) is 43K. Why put the onus on consumers of the
> data to find an implementation of a less-known compression scheme
> their platform doesn’t support?

GNU now provides .lz with new packages but they also provide the .gz
to support older systems. Lzip appears to have advantages where only
poor and/or slow connections are available. Thus there would also be
a size advantage in distributing the test data as a separate archive
in all the formats desired. A case could be made for also providing
.zip archives for those who deal only with .Net and java on Windows
(one of those is now MS for UWP and Store apps).

>>> It’s going to cause a lot of work for a lot of people.
>> It'll be a bit of work at the start, to change unpacking scripts.
>> But the changes are small, and it should save some work in the long
>> run. And there's no rush, as the old-format tarballs will continue
>> to be distributed.
>> Alexander Belopolsky wrote:
>>> If the size of data distribution is a concern, it looks like one
>>> can achieve a much better compression by simply discarding
>>> comments
>> But the comments are the best part! :-)
+1 junk the test data used by few, over the comments enjoyed by many!

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada