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From: vd09+@andrew.cmu.edu (Vincent M. Del Vecchio)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: Don't post stuff using stuffit
Message-ID: <8bUCOW_00aw3M4i6QW@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 1 Jan 91 19:44:34 GMT
References: <40227@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <8bTek_u00aw301AtdE@andrew.cmu.edu>,
	<17116@brahms.udel.edu>
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 26
In-Reply-To: <17116@brahms.udel.edu>

> Another point about Compactor, which I've never tried... Does the license
>  allow you to keep it for free for unarchival purposes only? If not, then 
> that's another blow against it.

This part isn't a concern; as is the case with UnStuffit, Extractor (the
uncompress-only version of Compactor) is free.  I do agree that it would be
nice if Bill Goodman would at least release info on how to decompress his
archives, similar to what Phil Katz has done.  If the names in Stuffit are at
all meaningful, the non-availability of info on Stuffit formats is almost a
non-issue.  The "better" formats are the same as the 1.5.1 formats, and the
"best" format, I believe, is LZH, the same thing used in Lharc, which is hardly
proprietary.  JPEG is also a standard.  Other formats may be more of a problem,
but these that are known are the most commonly used, I think.

> as for stuffit.  The #1 concern should be universal ability to unarchive
> on multiple platforms and should be free.

I think that this is a non-issue for any Unix archiver.  For it to be available
across Unixes, source must be available, and hence the archive format is
implicitly known.  Also, (excepting the possibility of a patent problem with
compress) these things tend to be free.

I guess that's four cents now.

-Vince Del Vecchio
vd09@andrew.cmu.edu