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1994-05-18
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Because the `compress' utility is covered by patents (US 4,464,650 and
4,558,302), we cannot use it; it is not free software.
Instead, the GNU Project uses the `gzip' program, which is free of known
software patents and also compresses better than `compress'. Files
compressed with this method end with `.gz'.
Gzip can also uncompress files compressed with `compress' (i.e. files
ending in `.Z'), since the uncompression algorithm is not patented.
To extract sources that are in files ending in `.tar.gz' you can use the
command
gzip -d < foo.tar.gz | tar xf -
where `foo.tar.gz' is the name of the file.
Gzip is available in source form on this ftp archive, in the file
gzip-N.N.shar, gzip-N.N.tar, and gzip-N.N.tar.gz (the last for people
who already have gzip but want to get a newer version, since the gzipped
file will transfer faster). Gzip is also available as a DOS
executable in the file gzip-N.N.msdos.exe. To find a VMS executable,
read gzip-vms.README.