Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!LL-VLSI.ARPA!malpass From: malpass@LL-VLSI.ARPA (Don Malpass) Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100 Subject: Re: GSARC - non-compatible more efficient archiver Message-ID: <8810312159.AA02712@ll-vlsi.arpa> Date: 31 Oct 88 21:59:52 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 37 Forgive the delayed response - I've been out of town. >From: Keith Petersen >Subject: GSARC - non-compatible more efficient archiver > >Don, are you suggesting that files on SIMTEL20 be censored? >The significant thing, in my opinion, is that a major breakthrough has >been made in compression efficiency. Must everyone be forever locked >into less efficient algorithms just because the older programs can't >read the new format? >--Keith Since you and I have tended to be on the same side of most issues until the arc warfare, I shouldn't give you a seemingly smartass answer. But if electing to "Ban all SEA software and/or arc files from Simtel and BB's" isn't censorship, I don't know what else to call it. My argument, as I've frequently stated, is not against "progress" but against INCOMPATIBILITY, also known as CONFUSION. Being able to try out an endless supply of new software is great, but if every new program were named command.com we'd shortly tire of the puzzle as to what each one did. This is no less true of data files, and the world is NOT a better place for having a proliferation of incompatible files that end in ".arc". As evidence I offer the fact that collectively the computer community has blown away tens of [wo]man-years writing and reading flames and messages like this one. You're as tired of it as I am. It is not a legal or even an emotional issue; it is a practical one. I applaud the efforts to specify and generate the next generation of archiving/compressing/smart-backup software. I only wish it were being done with harmony instead of acrimony. But at least by now we should all have learned what NOT to call it or the files it generates. Cheers, don --- Don Malpass [malpass@LL-vlsi.arpa], [malpass@spenser.ll.mit.edu] My opinions are seldom shared by MIT Lincoln Lab, my actual employer RCA (known recently as GE), or my wife.