In article <20100203170030.ga7...@panix.com>, Thor Lancelot Simon <t...@panix.com> wrote: >On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 04:33:59PM +0100, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote: >> On Wed, Feb 03, 2010 at 12:44:39AM -0500, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: >> > It's a tiny, very very fast compression library. Christos wants it >> > for bootblocks, among other things (or so he says -- ask him). >> >> For boot blocks or boot loaders? > >Ask Christos. I don't use it for that purpose myself (I use it for >a number of other things a very fast compressor is useful for, like >network data streams and backups). I am guessing what he was after >was small size and fast decompression (for some resource-constrained >platform?).
I wanted to evaluate using it at work, for data streaming. The discussion with Thor went like: Thor: I have it already integrated in my own tree, should I import it. Christos: Sure I think so; it is small enough and we don't have something else with similar functionality in the tree, LZO is GPL, and the rest are too big/complicated. >The bottom line is that I had the code in my local tree, someone whose >technical opinion I respect sufficiently to simply check it in on his >request made the request, and so I did. > >As I said earlier, if you want to remove 3-5000 bytes from the system, >I can recommend some much better candidates. I still think it is useful and it should stay, just because the code is so simple. It is not the best compressor, but it is a fast and easy to understand one. If you don't think so, I'll remove it. christos