Ralf Muschall wrote:

> Carl Bartels wrote:
>
> > type thing, only make it intelligent enough to search through all the
> > .jar's,
> > tar's, tgz's, tar.gz's, tar.bz2's, .zip's and God knows what else people
>
> AFAIK future zlibs will understand .bz2.
>
> IIRC the tar interface (which I don't know) would just have
> to call "gzopen" instead of "open", the [de]compression would
> then happen transparently. I have no idea whether zlib provides
> all the other stream-related functions that the tar interface
> needs.
>
> I'd say that .jar and .zip are not necessary - just tell the users
> with nonstandard machines how to get and install tar and gzip.
> Non-programmers on PCs might be happier with winzip, which can
> only extract tar, but not create it - but this is not a problem
> for them.
>
> Besides, pkzip is only shareware, not completely free, which might
> cause legal problems in strange circumstances.
> I'm not aware about the legal status of .jar.

Yes, but there are completely free implementations of .zip file handlers.

.jar files are open. They just take the .zip format, add an optional file
(manifest.mf), and specify that you can only use the non-patented compression
(thus avoiding legal issues). Any valid .jar file is a valid .zip file.

BTW, tar on Windows platforms (especially winzip) can cause big headaches
with EOL conversions.

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