Subject: [IGS-DCWG-67] Re: [IGS-DCWG-65] Change in compression scheme
From: "Stowers, David A (3350)" <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 08:22:03 -0700

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IGS-DCWG Mail      01 Apr 08:22:28 PDT 2010      Message Number 67
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Author: Dave Stowers

I have no major stake in this, but I think you'll find "bzip2" and "bunzip2"
in all of the O/S types mentioned below, including MacOSX.

Redhat-based distributions (at least) often compress contents within
standard .rpm packages using bzip2.

Sun Linux also provides updates in .tar.bz2 form.

Sun Solaris has been issuing patches for bzip2 for several years.

SunOS ... really?

Winzip, version 11 or later supports all of the mentioned compression
types (.Z, .gz, .bz2).

In other words, the issues appear to be hardcoded or scripted software
dependencies, and whether there really are space (and therefore cost)
savings at large data centers.

I have not performed .Z/.gz/.bz2 testing in years, and do not expect to
do so now. I just need advance warning and an implementation plan,
should it be so decided.

-dave

On Apr 1, 2010, at 12:51 AM, Nacho Romero wrote:

> ******************************************************************************
> IGS-DCWG Mail      01 Apr 07:59:07 PDT 2010      Message Number 65
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>
> Author: Nacho Romero
>
> Dear all,
>
> As Mike has mentioned already the issue of WIIIDE support is
> essential, for most users the .Z is already an issue as 99% of people
> grow up knowing only .zip so switching to .bz2 files is going to seem
> "foreign" to most users (non-expert).  I am assuming that Winzip can
> handle .Z, .zip, .bz2 and .gz files transparently these days but I do
> not use Windows anymore so no idea, please someone confirm, thanks.
>
> If there is not that much difference I would suggest .gz, which is
> already an improvement over .Z, since "gzip" is more common and well
> known. On Hatanaka compressed files the difference "should" not be
> too large with .bz2 but I have not checked this in a long time so I
> am open to be contradicted.
> Also bzip does not seem to be in the baseline distributions of Linux
> Ubuntu, or OS X, or SunOS, the operating systems that I generally
> use, whereas gzip is always available by default.  This is just my
> opinion and bias showing so take it for what it is worth but I think
> .gz is better known than .bz2
>
> On the Hatanaka side I expect continued support from GSI and as the
> source code is available I have never had any problem compiling it in
> different platforms.  Mike; this is something that we need to also
> chase from the RINEX side in the IC! we will initiate contacts with
> GSI to see what their position is on RINEX3.0, just to be sure.
>
>
> regards,
>
> Nacho