BSD tar (was Re: Making pkg_XXX tools smarter about file types...)

[Jordan K Hubbard]

Given ample personal experience with this issue, all I can say is that 
actions speak a lot louder than words where it's concerned.  :-)

I don't mean this in the usual and offensive "put up or shut up" sense 
either, believe it or not.  It's just that I've seen literally years 
worth of discussion on this topic and all the threads generally wind up 
in exactly the same place:  Everyone agrees that the format should 
support good compression, random access to contents (or at least a good 
and fast way of skipping over unwanted items), a library as well as 
command-line API for manipulation, rich and extensible metadata for 
file attributes/signatures/checksums/comments/etc etc, the usual 
laundry list.  Then everyone starts pulling up various package file 
formats from the 70's and 80's (which is about when all of the current 
ones were designed) and arguing the pros and cons of each, none of 
which were exactly designed with the current range of file attributes 
and computing capabilities in mind so this leads to lots of "the foo 
format sucks!" kinds of comments.  Eventually everyone gets tired and 
leaves the discussion for another few months/years.

That is why the deadlock will only be broken by someone coming forward 
with a new file format AND implementation (library and command line 
API) on a plate, pointing to all of its obvious advantages and 
suitability for current needs and then seeking to evangelize that 
rather than getting trapped in the endless cycle of 
tar/zip/rar/zoo/arc/blah debates.

- Jordan

On Sunday, March 30, 2003, at 11:47 AM, Tim Kientzle wrote:

> I've given up trying to argue for a
> well-designed package file format.
> tar works well enough, I suppose.
> (Better than the oft-suggested
> 'zip' format.  Ugh.)
>