[okfn-help] Free/open file compression/archiving software?

[Rufus Pollock]

On 23/04/08 22:30, Alain Schremmer wrote:
> 
> On Apr 23, 2008, at 1:33 PM, Rufus Pollock wrote:
> 
>> On 23/04/08 16:12, Jonathan Gray wrote:
>>> Alain Schremmer wrote:
[snip]
>>
>> That's *really* easy:
>>
>>   * tar + gzip
>>   * zip (i'm not entirely sure it is patent-unencumbered but there 
>> seem to be implementations on every F/OSS software platform I know of)
> 
> I looked up tarzip up but I can't remember what made me not use it. I 
> think that it has something to do with the kind of people likely to 
> download the stuff probably not having much more than Stuffit expander 
> which can be downloaded for free. So I am using zip but I will look up 
> tar + gzip again.

zip is fine and is probably slightly better for cross-platform support 
so I'd just stick with that.

>>
>> If you are looking for specific formats (e.g. audio/video) then it 
>> gets more complicated but you could start here:
>>
>> <http://www.okfn.org/iai/wiki/FormatRegistry>
> 
> I need to compress LaTeX files, pdf files, Intaglio and SVG files in 
> order to be FDL compliant. None of these are listed in FormatRegistry.

PDF is listed (at the top) and svg is also listed further down. 
Latex/Tex would obviously definitely count as open so no problems there. 
Intaglio looks to be a mac osx drawing programme. As it looks to be 
proprietary I suggest not using its own format but exporting whatever 
material you made in it to an open format (png/svg/...).

In terms of compressing them you really just want to compress them 
together into a single bundle using 'zip'.

Regards,

Rufus