Re: lzip support

[Jim Meyering]

Bob Friesenhahn <address@hidden> wrote:
> 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?

Sure: once there is a beta release of xz, lzma can go.

When adding xz support, I considered whether to remove mention of lzma
from NEWS, since it's now slated for removal.  But of course, this is
just my opinion.  Ralf's is the one who matters here ;-)