[Zlib-devel] Deflate 64 and zLib

[Mark Adler]

On Sunday, June 15, 2003, at 02:26  PM, Gilles Vollant wrote:
> Do you known if we can imagine a zLib that support Deflate64 stream ?

 From the FAQ in 1.2.0.1:

37. Does zlib support the new "Deflate64" format introduced by PKWare?

     No. PKWare has apparently decided to keep that format proprietary, 
since
     they have not documented it as they have previous compression 
formats.
     In any case, the compression improvements are so modest compared to 
other
     more modern approaches, that it's not worth the effort to implement.

Interestingly, PKWare just recently (June 2nd) put out a new appnote, 
and it still does not document deflate64.  This confirms that in fact 
it is a conscious decision on the part of PKWare to reverse their open 
format policy of the past.  I have an issue with supporting a format 
(and therefore, their product) through reverse-engineering.  In my 
judgment, open formats are even more important than open source to 
promote quality software, and so I do not want to support closed 
formats.

mark