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From: Jim.Matthews@dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: StuffIt Deluxe (Compactor)
Message-ID: <23963@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 29 Aug 90 13:56:51 GMT
References: <1990Aug29.093732.7927@cs.UAlberta.CA>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: Jim.Matthews@dartmouth.edu (Jim Matthews)
Organization: Dartmouth Software Development
Lines: 24

In article <1990Aug29.093732.7927@cs.UAlberta.CA>, antoine@cs.UAlberta.CA
(Antoine Verheijen) writes:
> I can think of a couple of reasons not to (switch to Compactor):
>  
>    2) Compactor uses unknown/undocumented data structures and compression
>       methods. This eliminates the possibility of developing tools on 
>       other systems for processing compactor files (as is possible with
>       StuffIt files) and makes it virtually impossible to try to recover
>       partial contents in the case of a corrupted archive.

This is also why the net should not switch to StuffIt! Deluxe.  Alladin
has stated that the file format of StuffIt! Deluxe will remain proprietary.
Free unstuffing will be available, but only from Alladin.  So I don't think
you'll see a freeware unsit_deluxe, or at least not in source form.  And
programmers (like myself) who want to support auto-unstuffing in our programs
will have to either license Alladin code or require that our users buy
StuffIt! Deluxe and use its de-compression engine.

The original StuffIt's compression is nearly as good as SD's, and having a 
documented file format is a great advantage.  I don't see any good reasons 
to switch.

Jim Matthews
Dartmouth Software Development--