[Zlib-devel] crc32 big/little endian

[Mark Adler]

Joakim,

On Apr 21, 2010, at 10:58 AM, Joakim Tjernlund wrote:
> non viewing of the archives hardly qualifies as SPAM protection.

If the zlib-devel list is open, then it is a place to harvest members' email addresses from.  A while back members of this list were worried about that.

A poll: who on the list would be concerned if I open it up?  I really don't care, since my email address is already a lost cause.

> You don't see that zlib development looks almost dead to the causal reader

Maybe in comparison to other projects it *is* almost dead.  I don't know.  To first order, zlib doesn't need continuous development.  It just works and doesn't really need new features -- just performance improvements where possible.  What is this "casual reader" actually trying to figure out?  Do they think for some reason that they should only use packages that happen to currently be in a phase of energetic development?

> There is no repo and how am I supposed to know about them before I have joined
> the list and you have told me?

You don't.  Those are mainly for the use of us zlib developers.  I have also pointed code historians (who use code bases like this for some sort of arcane research) to them.  Users of zlib only need to be able to find the current version.

> Probably not, but an viewable archive would let me search for stuff
> if I wanted to and I could see if the project is still alive.

I guess there are two "alives" we could be talking about here.  A zlib at gzip.org archive might provide indication that zlib is "alive" with respect to a user base (and boy is it).  However it provides no indication of "alive" with respect to continued development.  I thought that you were talking about the latter.

Also I'm not sure what you would search for in the zlib at gzip.org email, but I'd wager you wouldn't find it.

> because:                                550 5.7.1 <madler at alumni.caltech.edu>: Recipient address   rejected: Message rejected due to: SPF fail - not authorized. Only   mail.alumni.caltech.edu is authorized to send mail with @alumni.caltech.edu   FROM: addresses
...
>     Date:  2009/11/09 18:32:31

Ok, thanks.  It looks like my alumni server thought that the email had a "From" address of alumni.caltech.edu, but wasn't actually sent from there.  That alumni server rejects email with From addresses it can tell are forged as a security feature.  I don't control that.

> Then zlib should be more visible. An outsider is someone who just joined and
> have no clue how zlib development is supposed to work.

That's a good point.  I guess the current members pick it up by osmosis.  I will put together a little description of that to send to new subscribers.

Mark