Re: Re: Uncompressed mbox format storage

[wrotycz]

Bob Proulx wrote:

Mailman requires it to append new messages into the mailbox.  That's

the main reason.

After month ends one does not need not should append anything to that mailbox.

So, except current month, everything can be compressed.

Many file systems these days have built in compression.

And many dont.

Also it is send to user uncompressed, which uses 3-5 times more bandwidth.

I realize

that the file system on lists.gnu.org does not.  But it could.

As above.

And

then compressing it on top of a compressed file system is redundant.

It is not. First, static compressor will do better job, and second it will be send over internet in compressed state, without involving decompressor and processor.

For the most part the file are not compressed because all of the tools

which work with those files on the server side need the files to be

uncompressed.  I am sure that a lot of random and unknown to us tools

would need to be modified if it were switched to a compressed format.

That is a wild guess.

That's a lot of effort.  And again IMNHO the effort would be better

spent moving those files to a compressed file system if one wanted to

do that.

As above.

As far as network download bandwidth goes, not that many people

download those files.  That hasn't been the main bandwidth drain when

I have looked at things.  Also web servers can offer content

compressed for the transmission.

But they dont. Everything is sent uncompressed; checked that.

That's where I would put the effort

in if network bandwidth were to be reduced.

Content compression is set to be fast, rather than tight, and is required during every request, when static compression is done once.

I will leave further discussion of this to Ian who maintains the

mailing list server at this level.  I am sure Ian will have more

insight into this than I do.

Thanks.