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Subject: Re: Voice files update

Re: Voice files update

From: Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren_at_smiths-aerospace.com>
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006 08:53:46 -0400

Jonas H wrote:
> Jerry Van Baren wrote:
>> Grant Hardy wrote:
>>>> What does being a developer have to do with downloading the source
>>> tarball, and extracting the .lang file that you >need?
>>>
>>> Oh…well, I’m honestly not aware even how to open a “.tar” file. I
>>> assumed that this was some file used in a development environment?
>>> It’s certainly not a standard archive file like zip.
>>>
>>> Grant
>> Time for a short history lesson...
>>
>
> To be fair..
>
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gzip> "gzip is short for GNU zip, a GNU
> free software file compression program. It was created by Jean-loup
> Gailly and Mark Adler. Version 0.1 was first publicly released on
> October 31, 1992. Version 1.0 followed in February 1993."

Well, the initial discussion was archival programs, zip vs. tar. Zip
also compresses the archive, which is very beneficial but is not
necessary to the archival process.

I counter the gzip quote with compress, which was the predecessor of
gzip. Compress predates PKzip (January 1989), albeit tar & compress is
a two step process instead of a one step process. (The primary reason
gzip was created was to avoid the "submarine" patent that torpedoed
compress.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compress> "The LZW algorithm that compress
is based on was being patented by Sperry Research Center in 1983. The
person who applied for the patent published an IEEE article on the
algorithm in 1984, without mentioning that the algorithm was patent
pending. Spencer Thomas took this article and implemented compress in
1984, without realizing that the LZW algorithm was patent pending."

gvb ;-)
Received on 2006-09-29

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