Zpaq package isnt up to date (wasnt updated over 2 years)

[thometal]

The current version is 6.15 but the package version is just 1.10, so nearly 2 years of development the package wasnt updated.

The newer version comes with:
- significant faster and better compression engine
- ability to create incremental backups
- ability to create encrypted archives

Also homepage for the project isnt correct anymore, now its:

http://mattmahoney.net/dc/zpaq.html

On the bottom of the page you find the history of zpaq

License is: gplv3 + public domain + mit license

The benefient of the archiver is that it can enhanced with custom algorithms that the default decoder will also able to decompress the file, during a intermediate language how to decompress the file.

Development thread: http://encode.ru/threads/456-zpaq-updates

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jari Aalto (jari-aalto)]

The zpaq 1.x is completely different from other zpaq versions, so in practice the 1.x is the final version of the development branch. If someone want's to package any later versions, please name it "zpaq2".

This is analogue to Apache 1.x and Apache 2.x that are completely different code base.

Jari (The Debian mainainer)

[thometal (thometal)]

I dont think so. Which development branch do you mean? The author of zpaq doesnt use any source versioning tool.

Why do you think its the end of the "Development branch"?

Version 6.15 is still compartible to 1.10 you can dempress archives which where created with zpaq 1.10 with 6.** and earlier.

So I think we dont need a new package for this.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

*** This is an automated message ***

This bug is tagged needs-packaging which identifies it as a request for a new package in Ubuntu. As a part of the managing needs-packaging bug reports specification, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/Specs/NeedsPackagingBugs, all needs-packaging bug reports have Wishlist importance. Subsequently, I'm setting this bug's status to Wishlist.

[thometal (thometal)]

Recent quote from the author in the development thread of zpaq about the old package:

"Didn't know zpaq was in Ubuntu. v1.10 is really old. It is single threaded and uses interpreted ZPAQL so it is pretty slow. "

http://encode.ru/threads/456-zpaq-updates?p=31251&viewfull=1#post31251

So please update it to a more recent version. Also I think a new package would confuse the users.

[Jari Aalto (jari-aalto)]

I'm the Debian maintainer of zpaq. I'd like to explain why the zpaq hasn't been updated since.

* Not having any manual pages. the pages were hand written by me.
  The pages are quite extensive in size and coverage.

* After 1.10 the zpaq infrastructure changed radically.
   It was split into library part and client part.

It was not possible to upgrade to new versions as the manual pages and all the source code very very much incompatible. It was not possible to merge in changes. After every new release this divergency has increased.

The situation is comparable to apache1 and apache2: The Apache2 is a rewrite and not upgradeable in source level.

I suggest that somebody opens a RFP (request for package) for "zpaq2" or "zpaq-new" that is based on the new infrastructure. The packager also probably needs to start from scratch to e.g. write the associated manual pages.

There are no viable solutions or possibilities as far as I can see to update 1.10 any further.

Possibly this bug might be marked as "wontfix" in Debian tag parlance.