Subj : Fmail Compression and Decompression
To   : Wilfred van Velzen
From : Michiel van der Vlist
Date : Mon Aug 21 2023 02:45 pm

Hello Wilfred,

On Monday August 21 2023 10:40, you wrote to me:

 WV>>> I'm still using rar on two links.

 MvdV>> Why? They do not support ZIP?

 WV> Because I can. ;-)

Bad argument.

 WV> At the time the choice was made, because rar compressed better. And
 WV> because it still works there is no reason to change this.

It is no secret that I am not a member of the "more is better" club. In the POTS age with high cost of data transport "compressed better" was a valid argument. Although even then in the end of the compression evolution the added value was so small that it didn't really matter anymore. Is another one percent of compression efficiency realy worth it.

In the age of FOIP it has become irrelevant. In addition to thet the trend is to not have mailer/tossers just process uncompressed packets and let binkd do any compression.

 WV>>> And lha is in use in AmigaNet, because it was and still is the
 WV>>> default archiver for the Amiga.

 MvdV>> How many in Amiganet still actually use an Amiga?

 WV> Enough...

Enough to lkep LAH alive?

 MvdV>> Hoe many of those do not also have a Fidonet node and support
 MvdV>> ZIP? ZIP has become de de facto compression standard in
 MvdV>> Fidonet.

 MvdV>> The problem with keeping all these antiquaria, is that you also
 MvdV>> have to support it. This will become increasingly difficult
 MvdV>> when the knowledge evaporates...

 WV> This is true for all of Fidonet technology. Keeping this old
 WV> techniques working is partly what makes it interesting...

True but at some point one has to make choices that every museum has to make. What do we keep and what do we drop? I see little value in keeping more then one compression method alive for Fidonet. Yes, it is interesting to keep Fidonet alive. But not ALL of the technology that was ever used. Drop some and focus on keeping the rest alive.


Cheers, Michiel

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