[Zlib-devel] zlib and LZMA

[Glenn Randers-Pehrson]

At 11:34 AM 7/15/2006 -0700, Mark Adler wrote:
>zlibbers,
>
>I wanted to let you all know that I have been discussing adding LZMA  
>to zlib and gzip with Igor Pavlov (author of 7-zip).  LZMA will  
>provide a higher compression alternative to deflate, of course at the  
>cost of more CPU and more memory.  I picked LZMA since it compresses  
>better than most of the block-sort software I've seen, it provides  
>relatively fast decompression, it is open source, and it appears to  
>be patent free.
>
>As for timeline, Igor is currently working on LZMA2, which should be  
>complete in a few months.  That is the actual compression method that  
>will be added to zlib and gzip.  In the meantime, I will be  
>incorporating an LZMA decoder in our private beta versions of zlib to  
>work out the interfaces with this group and test them with your help.
>
>I also plan to add XML-WRT and executable filters as compression  
>options in zlib and gzip.
>
>Your help with testing and commentary will, as always, be greatly  
>appreciated.  Also if there are any volunteers to help with the  
>coding, that would be great too.
>
>mark

Will putting a new method in zlib automatically put it in PNG as well?
Or would it require a vote among the PNG developers to accept datastreams
that use the new metnod?  I suspect the latter, but I also suspect that
we might start seeing such PNGs, approved or not, once the method is
distributed in zlib.

Glenn