On 27/09/2025 18:10, Collin Funk wrote:
Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> writes:
I'm considering applying the attached to only distribute xz tarballs.
We didn't release .tar.gz sources since coreutils-8.14 (2011),
but then re-enabled .tar.gz since coreutils-8.32 (2020).
That was to support Guix bootstrapping 100% from sources:
https://lists.gnu.org/r/coreutils/2020-02/msg00042.html
Since then I understand Guix' bootar got xz support.
Also I noticed in all the plethora of (older) systems I tested
coreutils 9.8 on, that xz was supported on them all.
Also it's another 5 years down the line.
cheers,
Padraig
p.s. I did a quick test with zstd (supported since automake 1.16.2 (2020)),
but the file size was about the same (a little bigger),
so I don't think we get enough benefits from enabling that.
I don't see any harm in having a backup format. Remember the Jia Tan
situation where everyone was rightfully afraid of running 'xz' until it
was rolled back?
Fair point. Though:
coreutils-9.8.tar.gz = 15,171,745 coreutils-9.8.tar.xz = 6,234,824
cheers,
Padraig
