On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 11:38:02PM -0700, Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> Our releases are normally built with GNU tar, which seems to default to
> --format=tar. I wonder if we should switch to --format=pax. The pax
> format was defined by POSIX.1 10 years ago, and should be widely
> supported at this point. GNU tar can generate it and recognize it.
I've never seen anyone distribute free software with the pax format.
Yes, Posix created it to settle a fight between promoters of the tar
and the cpio format: create yet a third format and declare peace
(pax is Latin for peace). But no one uses pax.
> That might permit us to remove this paragraph from install.texi:
>
> @item GNU tar version 1.14 (or later)
>
> Necessary (only on some platforms) to untar the source code. Many
> systems' @command{tar} programs will also work, only try GNU
> @command{tar} if you have problems.
But you'd need a program that could deal with the pax format, which, for
most people, would be GNU tar.
