Why Zip Comression in Panther?

tspencer83tspencer83
Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
Hi, just wondered if anyone had any idea as to why Apple would choose to incorporate .zip compression instead of .sit compression into Panther. I was always under the impression that .sit and now .sitx compression were both far better than .zip compression. Just curious. Thanks
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 50
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Sit is owned by Aladdin.
  • Reply 2 of 50
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    JLL is correct. *.sit and *.sitx are proprietary, closed formats owned by Aladdin Systems.



    Also, I've heard terrible things regarding speed and the sitx format.



    Moving to Mac OS X.
  • Reply 3 of 50
    thuh freakthuh freak Posts: 2,664member
    incorporate how? don't they give away stuffit expander anymore? how come they don't use tarballs (.tgz, .tar.gz)?
  • Reply 4 of 50
    jwilljwill Posts: 209member
    I have no idea..I don't mind the .zip, though, and since it's built into the system, you wonder why someone wouldn't use it.



    Even though I think .sit files are smaller than .zip..I know that .sit is property of Aladdin, so they can't use that.
  • Reply 5 of 50
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    .zip is a bit more friendly to most consumers, particularly people familiar with Windows. If you offer .zip support at the system level in Mac OS X, it helps make people feel more comfortable.



    That's my theory...
  • Reply 6 of 50
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    If you want to share files with Windows users, you ZIP it. It is a universal archiving format.



    For more convinent archiving, you turn a folder into a disc image. Unfortunatly, as yet, DMGs only work in Mac OS X. So to send files amongst Mac users, you disc image something.



    In-ter-op-er-a-bil-i-ty



    Barto
  • Reply 7 of 50
    jwilljwill Posts: 209member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Barto

    If you want to share files with Windows users, you ZIP it. It is a universal archiving format.



    For more convinent archiving, you turn a folder into a disc image. Unfortunatly, as yet, DMGs only work in Mac OS X. So to send files amongst Mac users, you disc image something.



    In-ter-op-er-a-bil-i-ty



    Barto



    Makes a lot of sense to me.
  • Reply 8 of 50
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Because Aladdin is going out of business. I used to love them. But their product just isn't keeping up. Expander isn't multithreaded!? It can't decompress two or more files at the same time, so if you want to expand a 1k file while a huge SITX is unstuffing too bad. It can not uncompress damaged or incomplete files. I have to keep a copy of MindExpander around and fire it up in Classic for that. If freeware can do it why not Expander 7? They are becoming content with mediocre software so I am guessing in a few years they won't be around. Sure ZIP is less efficient but it's on Windows. tarball isn't. PC users know what ZIP is, they haven't heard of UNIX. So this is good I think.
  • Reply 9 of 50
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Aquatic

    Because Aladdin is going out of business.



    Not surprisingly, given that Stuffit has gotten more and more obnoxious and less and less useful, and Aladdin have been requiring email addresses and personal information, piling on commercial mail and generally being annoying. It used to be a great company...



    ZIP isn't bad, nobody really owns it (well, except for the implementation that uses the same compression algorithm in GIF), and every platform understands it.



    (Anybody remember Compact Pro?)
  • Reply 10 of 50
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    winzip uncompresses .tgz just fine. I use it just to throw people off. Of course, they double click it without knowing what the hell the extension means. I swear, the people I work with are an IT person's nightmare.
  • Reply 11 of 50
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    As far as I know, WinZip can open .sit files just fine.
  • Reply 12 of 50
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    Which means nothing because Apple cannot use Aladdin's formats regardless of how well they can be used on the Windows side of things?



    I think incorporating .zip is a great idea, though I would love to see them do .tgz and other formats. At least to the point where you can expand them using the Finder, if not create them.
  • Reply 13 of 50
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Spart

    Which means nothing because Apple cannot use Aladdin's formats regardless of how well they can be used on the Windows side of things?



    I think incorporating .zip is a great idea, though I would love to see them do .tgz and other formats. At least to the point where you can expand them using the Finder, if not create them.



    Ditto. It shouldn't be hard to do either (at all). In fact, all that is needed is a shell call to tar and gzip.



    Barto
  • Reply 14 of 50
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    The quality of Stuffit has been declining for a few years now. It seems that the software has actually gotten worse, becoming more complicated without adding useful features. (like multi-threading)



    I suspect that the person originally responsible for Stuffit's quality/reputation is now gone. It's not too uncommon for a single person or perhaps a handful of people to make or break an application. Anyone got details on this? Has staffing changed at Aladdin? If so, perhaps apple just recognized that a niche format isn't a good choice when it appears to be heading down hill.
  • Reply 15 of 50
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dfiler

    The quality of Stuffit has been declining for a few years now. It seems that the software has actually gotten worse, becoming more complicated without adding useful features. (like multi-threading)



    I suspect that the person originally responsible for Stuffit's quality/reputation is now gone. It's not too uncommon for a single person or perhaps a handful of people to make or break an application. Anyone got details on this? Has staffing changed at Aladdin? If so, perhaps apple just recognized that a niche format isn't a good choice when it appears to be heading down hill.



    Little Raymond Lau was the author of StuffIt back in the days when StuffIt was excellent. Looking at Aladdin's current software quality, I'm almost certain Raymond Lau is gone.



    Lau stopped coding StuffIt in January 1995...it was about that time when StuffIt starting going downhill...thus confirming my first paragraph.
  • Reply 16 of 50
    zadakzadak Posts: 50member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Amorph

    (Anybody remember Compact Pro?)



    Ah, these memorys. LC II and Compact Pro was a wonderful combo. Sort. of.
  • Reply 17 of 50
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    I'd rather see gzipped and bzipped tarballs as Panther's default too, though for no rational reason. I don't doubt that eventually, Apple will allow us to choose what the standard method of archiving will be. I do hope Panther will solve the issue where contextual menus in the Finder take up to 30 seconds to show. To be honest, the Finder is most probably the Jaguar application I dread using most. It is by far the slowest and most annyoing. Following all reports, and personal tries, I cannot wait for Panther.
  • Reply 18 of 50
    anonymous karmaanonymous karma Posts: 174member
    Zip, at least in theory, can handle resource forks. I have not yet tested to see if this is so in Panther or if they just AppleDouble it.
  • Reply 19 of 50
    jlljll Posts: 2,713member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Anonymous Karma

    Zip, at least in theory, can handle resource forks. I have not yet tested to see if this is so in Panther or if they just AppleDouble it.



    I don't know what they use but resource forks are preserved.
  • Reply 20 of 50
    andrewmandrewm Posts: 50member
    StuffIt formats aside, when one considers that the BSD subsystem of OS X includes programs for zip (.zip), gzip (.gz), bzip2 (.bz2 and .bz), tar (.tar), and the disused compress (.Z), I think that Apple should provide Finder support for, at the very least, decompression of these formats, without the need to open either Terminal or a third-party program--well-coded or not--such as StuffIt Expander, OpenUp, et alii.



    The Finder preferences in Panther have an Advanced pane. In this pane could be added an option for the default format. Apple might also implement a contextual menu solution to allow compression, on-the-fly, into any format selected from this menu.
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