Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!elroy!jato!jbrown
From: jbrown@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Jordan Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: File packaging and compression
Message-ID: <259@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Date: 6 Oct 88 05:41:30 GMT
Reply-To: jbrown@jato.UUCP (Jordan Brown)
Organization: Me?  Organized?
Lines: 28

(gotta avoid the A word... :-)

I'm considering building a PUBLIC DOMAIN (that means *no* restrictions on
anything) file packaging and compression program.  I would attempt to
maintain portability across a wide variety of environments (obviously
MS-DOS and UNIX; others as appropriate) and would distribute the source
code.

I wouldn't promise that this would be the most featureful or fastest such
program ever built, but it would be PUBLIC DOMAIN.  And since I'd be
distributing source code, if somebody else figured out a way to be a
little faster or better, we could arrange to work TOGETHER to build
a better program.  (I anticipate compression ratios comparable to the
existing A-word programs, because everybody really uses compress.)

I don't have any arguments with SEA and PK.  I'm not sure who is in the
wrong, but it's clear we're all suffering.  I agree completely with somebody
who said that we (USENET, BBSes, etc) simply should not be depending on
a commercial product.

The initial interesting-feature list would include hierarchy support,
compression, and multivolume archive support.

So, what do people think?  Would anybody be interested in working on such
a project?  Would anybody support (as in use) such a program?

Jordan Brown
jbrown@jato.jpl.nasa.gov