Re: pkg/42967: pkgsrc does not support 7z archive file (archivers/p7zip)

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR pkg/42967; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: pkg/42967: pkgsrc does not support 7z archive file
 (archivers/p7zip)
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:21:51 +0100

 On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 02:05:03AM +0000, OBATA Akio wrote:
 >  >  In that case they should something portable like zip in first place.
 >  >  Really, 7z is yet another zip-like format that provides no real gain
 >  >  over the alternatives.
 >  
 >  High compression ratio is not a real gain?
 >  If it is not acceptable, .tar.xz is also not for me.
 
 It is an obscure alternative to zip if you look at the file format. The
 only reason why it got even semi-popular was the compression algorithm.
 The compression algorithm is essentially what you get with .tar.xz too.
 My point here is that the proliferation of obscure formats shouldn't be
 encouraged and therefore vendors should be asked to use sensible
 distribution formats.
 
 You argued that .tar.xz is painful to create in the Windows world.
 I agree that it is more work, but for users in the Windows world .7z is
 painful too (just like rar and whatever), as it requires Yet Another
 Program to handle something, when Windows supports zip files out of the
 box. Or to put it into a different perspective: XZ is very likely to
 fully replace tar.gz for most areas, which it very unlikely to happen
 with 7zip.
 
 Joerg