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

[Paul Eggert]

On 09/05/2016 10:38 PM, Jon Skeet wrote:
> The "tried and tested" compression formats (gzip, zip, even bzip2) 

If the overriding goal is a compression format that works everywhere 
now, then gzip is clearly the way to go, as we're already using it and 
all other formats are therefore more likely to cause a problem on some 
platform somewhere.

Luckily, though, that's not an absolute goal. Although lzip format is 
not everybody's preference, this is also true for other compression 
formats, and lzip is a reasonable choice for problems that the new 
distribution attempts to address. Our continuing to distribute 
gzip-format tarballs will address backwards-compatibility concerns.

Besides, it's not like this is our first rodeo. We formerly used 
Lempel-Ziv format, and switched to gzip format before gzip was 
nearly-universally installed and supported.

PS. In looking into this today I found and partly fixed some year-2038 
bugs in gzip! (Everything is connected....) See:

http://bugs.gnu.org/24385