Warp wrote:
>   Why would it be obsolete? 

Because it doesn't support all the new ACLs and other permission stuff.

> What would you suggest as an alternative?

star. :-)

Incidentally, the reason Zip is so widespread while lha, rar, etc are 
not, is the source for zip was given away with the license that you 
could create derivative works ONLY on the condition that it would not 
create files other versions could not read. Hence, zip became an 
exchange format, while the rest were striving to add another 2% or 3% 
compression ratios.

> It's still widely used in the unix world.

Which just goes to show that nobody really uses all the new ACLs and 
other permission stuff.

>   I really can't understand why precisely cygwin is used to port unix
> programs to Windows. Cygwin binaries rely on a bunch of dlls nobody has.

Because cigwin also supplies a shell and sym links and stuff like that, 
and as long as that's what you want under Windows, you might as well 
compile stuff using it. I.e., people use cygwin not because they want to 
port unix programs to windows, but because they want unix on their 
windows and incidentally they're porting this program. And hey, "it 
works for me."


FWIW, the key term to search on seems to be "win32". A native port of 
GNU stuff always seems to have the phrase "win32" somewhere in the name. 
SourceForge tends to be a good place to pick up stuff like diff and tar 
and so on.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
  Ever notice how people in a zombie movie never already know how to
  kill zombies? Ask 100 random people in America how to kill someone
  who has reanimated from the dead in a secret viral weapons lab,
  and how many do you think already know you need a head-shot?

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