*BSD News Article 87624


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From: nobody@read.my.sig (Joerg Pommnitz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux vs whatever
Date: 30 Jan 1997 16:36:00 GMT
Organization: IBM
Lines: 29
Message-ID: <5cqilg$17ea@rtpnews.raleigh.ibm.com>
References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <32EE0B70.1657@ml.com> <5claa2$jq1@cynic.portal.ca> <32f342b7.11963784@uns.bris.ac.uk> <5cnqsl$78o@cynic.portal.ca>
Reply-To: nobody@read.my.sig (Joerg Pommnitz)
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In <5cnqsl$78o@cynic.portal.ca>, cjs@cynic.portal.ca (Curt Sampson) writes:
>It does now, but it doesn't do it with the original, GPL'd code,
>does it? All this means is that either the original author spent
>time rewriting code that was already written, rather than spending
>that time on other features, or someone else out there re-wrote
>the GPL'd code, rather than contributing new free software to the
>world. (In fact, the latter is the case with NetBSD; we're right
>now wasting time writing a front end for the free zlib so that we
>can have a free gzip instead of an encumbered one. This is time
>that would otherwise be spent writing other free software.)

A few facts from the zlib homepage:

zlib> zlib was written by Jean-loup Gailly (compression) and Mark Adler 
zlib> (decompression). Jean-loup is also the primary author/maintainer 
zlib> of gzip(1), the author of the comp.compression FAQ list and the 
zlib> former maintainer of Info-ZIP's Zip; Mark is also the author of 
zlib> gzip's and UnZip's main decompression routines and was the 
zlib> original author of Zip. Not surprisingly, the compression algorithm 
zlib> used in zlib is essentially the same as that in gzip and Zip, namely, 
zlib> the `deflate' method that originated in PKWARE's PKZIP 2.x. 
and:
zlib> Upcoming versions of gzip and UnZip will also use zlib. 

--
Joerg Pommnitz   |Joerg@Raleigh.ibm.com| Never attribute to malloc 
Mobile/Wireless  |Dept UMRA            | that which can be adequately
T/L (919)254-6397|Office B502/E117     | explained by stupidity.