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Re: On another (but related) note: Zip files

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On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 03:57:52PM -0700, James H. H. Lampert wrote:
>I know that the tradition for Linux is GZipped tarballs, but I also 
>know that, at least from the Gnome desktop, I can open a 
>PKZip-compatible Zip file, and create a (presumably also) 
>PKZip-compatible Zip file.
>
>I don't, however, see a way to do so from the command line (or within 
>a script) without doing an apt-get to install the zip package (and 
>presumably also the unzip package).
>
>Can somebody explain this? It seems a bit puzzling.

I think it's down to the Freeness of the format. When PKZip was first 
released, it was shareware (meaning that the binary is provided free of 
charge, but there would be a "nag" message telling you to buy the 
product). GZip has always been free (probably GPL, but Wikipedia doesn't 
make that clear). Therefore, in the early days of Linux, gzip was the 
preferred format, because the compressor/decompressor was available for 
free.

So, because gzip has such a market share in the Linux world, it makes 
sense for it to be included in the debian base install (in fact, apt and 
various utilities rely on it, so it needs to be there). Zip files, 
though, are much less common in the Linux world. There is nothing in the 
base install of debian that requires zip files, so therefore the zip 
program is not installed.

As you point out, though, there *is* now a zip program which is Free 
(i.e which can be distributed by Debian), so access to zip files is just 
a command away.

>
>--
>JHHL
>

-- 
For more information, please reread.

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On another (but related) note: Zip files "James H. H. Lampert" <jamesl@touchtonecorp.com> - 2017-08-30 01:00 +0200
  Re: On another (but related) note: Zip files Lck Ras <likcoras@riseup.net> - 2017-08-30 01:30 +0200
  Re: On another (but related) note: Zip files Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2017-08-30 12:20 +0200
    Re: On another (but related) note: Zip files Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-08-30 14:30 +0200
    Re: On another (but related) note: Zip files Mario Castelán Castro <marioxcc.MT@yandex.com> - 2017-08-30 16:30 +0200

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