Re: lzip support

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, Jim Meyering wrote:
> I have been following lzma-utils development closely for some time,
> and my impression is that xz obviates lzip.  I would not want to
> encourage use of lzip without a convincing argument to the contrary.
>
> As soon as there's a beta xz release (i.e., stable format),
> I'll be switching from .lzma to .xz suffixes for all tarballs I create.

Competition is good and even between open source projects.  However, 
since many free projects depend on Automake, it makes sense for 
Automake to channel the energy into a smaller set of preferred 
formats.  Note that formats may be independent from the tools which 
produce and consume them so that tools may still compete.  If new 
formats are added, the least worthy of the existing supported 
distribution formats should be deprecated and eventually removed. 
This means that if .xz is added that .lzma should be immediately 
deprecated and slated for retirement from Automake.  Do you agree with 
this philosophy?

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/