zip (was: Re: Disk archival techniques)

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Thu, 19 May 2005, Randy McLaughlin wrote:

> There is no guaranteed method to go 500 years, the only reasonable thing is
> to go with the best available.

I'll interpret that to mean no compression, no archive formats, etc.  Just
offer the actual content.

> In this case best means a format understood by the majority.

Right, which is no format at all.

> In the future ZIP formats will be better understood than any other current
> format for the simple reason there are more zip files to examine than any
> other.

That's a very risky prediction.

> Packaging data understood by a tiny fraction of the world guarantees that it
> will be near impossible to use in the future.

So don't package it at all.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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