1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
|
General Notes
-------------
In this package, 'uncompress' is installed as 'uncompress.real' to avoid
conflict with the gzip package. Most of the utility scripts distributed with
the source code (zdiff, zmore, zcmp) are not installed.
The uncompress.real program installed to /usr/bin is just a symlink to the
compress program. Same goes for the uncompress.real manpage in
/usr/share/man/man1.
Please note that this version of ncompress does not support files larger than
2GB. I have toyed with increasing this limit, but I haven't been overly
successful. It looks to be possible to increase the limit up to 4GB, but
that's still an arbitrary limit, and given my level of understanding of this
code, I'm leery of doing it for no real gain. If you need support for very
large files, I suggest using gzip rather than compress.
Also, note that prior to fixing bug #220820 (in November of 2003, version
4.2.4-13), there was a data-corruption bug with 'compress -b9'. If you created
files using -b9 (maxbits of 9) prior to this version, your file was probably
corrupted, and you will only be able to recover parts of it. I have "fixed"
this bug by disallowing maxbits less than 10. The uncompress.real program will
still decompress 9-bit files created by other compress programs (such as the
ones from Solaris or AIX) but the compress program will not create 9-bit files.
This package was moved to main in August of 2004. Prior to that, it was kept
out of main because it implements the patented LZW algorithm. The consensus is
that patents on that algorithm have expired as of July 2004.
Upstream Source Code
--------------------
Christoph apparently downloaded the original tarball from:
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/linux/utils/compress/ncompress-4.2.4.tar.Z
In the meantime, however, sunsite.unc.edu has disappeared, and has been
replaced by ibiblio.org. Up until version 4.2.4.2-1, the upstream
source was:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/utils/compress/ncompress-4.2.4.tar.Z
Starting with 4.2.4.2-1, I have based the Debian package on the "new"
upstream SourceForge project:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ncompress/
There still isn't any active "development" on this project, but at
least now there's a central place where bug fixes from the various
Linux distributions can all be coordinated together.
Copyright and Patent Discussion
-------------------------------
The following article is from James A. Woods, one of the earlier authors of
compress. The article discusses the Unisys patent on the LZW compression
method, and how that affects ncompress.
From uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!wuarchive!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!riacs!jaw Wed Aug 1 15:06:59 EDT 1990
Article: 1282 of gnu.misc.discuss
Path: alembic!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!wuarchive!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!riacs!jaw
From: jaw@riacs.edu (James A. Woods)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Sperry patent #4,558,302 does *not* affect 'compress'
Keywords: data compression, algorithm, patent
Message-ID: <1990Jul31.220935.1424@riacs.edu>
Date: 31 Jul 90 22:09:35 GMT
Organization: RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center
Lines: 69
# "The chief defect of Henry King
Was chewing little bits of string."
-- Hilaire Belloc, Cautionary Tales [1907]
As a co-author of 'compress' who has had contact with an attorney for
Unisys (nee Sperry), I would like to relay a very basic admission from Unisys
that noncommercial use of 'compress' is perfectly legal. 'Compress' is also
commercially distributed by AT&T as part of Unix System 5 release 4,
with no further restrictions placed upon the use of the binary, as far
as I am aware.
From conversations with Professor Abraham Lempel and others, it
appears that neither AT&T, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard, nor IBM
are paying any sort of license fees to Unisys in conjunction with patent
#4,558,302. It may be true that some organizations are paying fees for
data compression technology licensed from one or more of the many holders
of compression patents, but this is all independent from 'compress'.
In particular, I received a letter at NASA dated October 1, 1987 from
John B. Sowell of the Unisys law department, informing me for the first
time that some form of LZW was patented. I naturally expressed
skepticism that an algorithm could be patented (a murky legal area
which remains so), stated that 'compress' is not identical to LZW,
and in fact was designed, developed, and distributed before the ink
on the patent was dry. Several telephone conversations later, Mr. Sowell
intimated that they would *not* seek any fees from users of 'compress'
but instead were signing licensees for hardware implementations of LZW.
So, regardless of what you believe about a shady legal area, if anyone
from Unisys contacts you to extract tribute for the use of 'compress', please
tell them that, first, it is not theirs to begin with, and, second, there is
someone who will testify in court about the conversation above.
It is not even clear if anyone can "own" 'compress', since original developer
Spencer Thomas, myself, and others placed the code in the public domain
long before the adoption of the Berne copyright convention.
In light of the events above, it seems that the Free Software
Foundation is being unduly paranoid about the use of 'compress'.
Now I can well believe that FSF is more likely to be a legal target
than a behemoth like AT&T, but if they are simply redistributing
untouched free software developed years ago in the public sector,
I see no problem.
Aside: I am investigating, possibly for a case history to be
recycled to USENET, the particulars of data compression patents.
I am aware of the following patents: IBM's Miller-Wegman LZ variant,
those of Telcor and ACT [losing candidates for the British Telecom modem
standard], James A. Storer's work on limited lookahead as explicated in his
text "Data Compression (methods and theory)", Computer Science Press, 1988,
and the various patents pending associated with the Fiala and Greene
CACM article of April, 1989 on textual substitution methods.
If you have any lore, send it this way.
Sincerely,
James A. Woods
NASA Ames Research Center (RIACS)
jaw@riacs.edu (or ames!jaw)
P.S. The algorithm patent issue certainly is a "topic A" at the moment.
One useful reference is the review article by Anthony and Colwell --
"Litigating the Validity and Infringement of Software Patents" in
Washington and Lee Law Review, volume 41, fall 1984. I know Robert Colwell
personally. As a practicing patent attorney, he tells me that, at a minimum,
use of an invention "for research purposes" is legitimate.
|
