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Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 07:43:18 -0500
From: Richard Coleman <rcoleman@criticalmagic.com>
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To: Xavier Maillard <zedek@gnu-rox.org>
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cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Heads up: gtar gone from base system
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Xavier Maillard wrote:
>>FreeBSD 6-CURRENT no longer includes "gtar."
>>In particular, the WITH_GTAR option is gone
>>and "tar" will always invoke the "bsdtar"
>>program.
> 
> No flame, but just wanted to know why ?
> 
> Cheers

I can't speak for Tim, but I would say:

1. We don't need two tar implementations in the base.
2. bsdtar is BSD licensed, whereas gtar is GPL.
3. bsdtar is based on libarchive.  Libarchive gives us the freedom to 
use tar features from a real library rather than using using system(). 
Hopefully the package system, and other utilities (cpio, pax) will 
ultimately use libarchive as well.
4. bsdtar is well written, reliable, and has the features that people 
actually use (since it has survived runs at the package cluster).

I suspect the other BSD's will pick up bsdtar/libarchive as well, if 
they haven't already.

Richard Coleman
rcoleman@criticalmagic.com