From: Eric Backus <ericb AT lsid DOT hp DOT com>
Subject: Re: Status of list
To: dj AT ctron DOT com
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 92 9:49:39 PDT
Cc: djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu (djgpp)
Mailer: Elm [revision: 66.25]

> Query: I'd like to switch djgpp from .zip files to a format I've come
> up with so that I can freely distribute my unpacking program (pkzip
> has certain legal restrictions for commercial distribution).  It will
> also prevent folks from forgetting the -d switch and allow me to
> describe the contents of each archive within itself.  The decompresser
> is a go32-style program, but only uses about 300K to decompress any
> size file.  Sources will be available in the djgpp distribution, so
> everyone will have access to it.  Any opinions on this?

1. There is a free version of zip out there.  It is available for many
hardware platforms, including both UNIX and MSDOS.  And it works quite
well.  For the MSDOS version, check out SIMTEL20 or one of its
mirrors, files PD1:<MSDOS.ZIP>ZIP10EXX.ZIP, and
PD1:<MSDOS.ZIP>UNZIP41.EXE.  Source for the UNIX version is also
somewhere on SIMTEL20 and its mirrors.  If you use this version of
zip, you will not have legal restrictions on commercial distribution.

2. There are other compressor/archiver programs out there, most of
which are free and most of which run on a variety of platforms.  Zoo
is a good one, and generally gets better compression than zip.

3. Pretty much everyone must already have copies of the common
compressor programs (zip, zoo, compress, maybe lha).  Why create yet
another format?
--
				Eric Backus
				ericb%hplsla AT hplabs DOT hp DOT com
				(206) 335-2495