On Thu, 31 Mar 2005, Martin Husemann wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 08:26:59PM +1000, Daniel Carosone wrote:
>> On Thu, Mar 31, 2005 at 12:24:56PM +0200, Martin Husemann wrote:
>>> Sorry if this is a stupid question - but what is all this usefull for?
>>
>> It gets used for stuff like compressed liveCD images, IIUC.
>
> Sorry, my question was terse. I see the point in read-only compressed data
> support in vnd. But why do we need a config program and have to be compatible
> with some linux stuff?
>
> Martin
>

This program (however we call it) compresses *ANY* given file system
image to the cloop-format (and decompresses it, of course).

Why do we "have" to be compatible with Linux stuff? Hm. We don't really
have to be. Perhaps because -just guessing- if one wants to share data
between the two. Know, you could also for example write a pure compressed
image to a CD and read it under both OS.

And: There's not -if we use the same apprach as compressing constant
source block size and access via an offset table- much we could do
different, so why not be compatible?

-Florian