RPM compression format

[Rahul Sundaram]

Michael Wiktowy wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I just read http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/static/suse11.html where is
> mentions that OpenSuSe 11 went with a different compression algorithm
> for their rpms (LZMA instead of bz2) and have a few questions:
> 
> 1) While every distro seems to be coming together on a package
> management GUI (PackageKit), does this represent a splintering of
> package formats? or is rpm compression algorithm agnostic? Is there
> any hope that the various rpm development will start pulling in the
> same direction?

Distribution have been shipping patches for a long while and that 
quantity against rpm seems to be dropping off now looking at SUSE, 
Mandriva etc. Compression algorithm doesn't affect the spec file format.

> 2) LZMA appears to have some good characteristics for installation
> rpms (tighter compression, 50% decompression time ... at least as
> implemented by 7zip ref:
> http://www.maximumcompression.com/data/summary_mf4.php ). Is Fedora
> planing to follow this switch (or has it already and not advertised it
> as a prominent feature) or are there other considerations preventing
> that (patent issues?, not suitable for delta rpms?, 200% compression
> time)?

Refer to this RFE I filed a while back at

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=441110

Rahul