bzip2 (Was Re: Re: Bigotry ?? [was --> Re: What is Linux ?])

[Arun Sharma <adsharma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 05, 2000 at 09:59:00AM +0530, Robin Chatterjee wrote:
> One thought from my end is that often a possibly superior solution
> even if opensource/free doesn't receive the prominence it should. case
> in point bzip2 compression. It's often quite a bit better than zip or
> gz but it hasn't gained as much popularity. why's that ? I feel it's
> cause the user is a lazy bum who just wants to get his work done and
> not have to go change all his gifs to pngs ;)

While bzip2 typically provides better compression, it also sucks up
more CPU.

See this criticism on a FreeBSD mailing list, where they were debating
whether the packages (FreeBSD equivalent of RPM) should be bzip'ed.

http://x53.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=576595676&search=thread&CONTEXT=960183510.52887554&hitnum=24

I think the more recent versions of bzip2 are more optimized. 

Oh BTW, you should completely avoid using bzip like plague, because it's
BSD licensed ;-)

	-Arun