[OSM-talk] Why bz2?

[Tom Hughes]

On 23/11/10 11:06, Fabio Alessandro Locati wrote:

> It seems that all files from planet.openstreetmap.org are in .bz2
> format. Why using it instead of xz? xz can compress (usually) more
> than bz2 and is way faster to compress/uncompress.(1) I'm sure that
> there are other sources that report the same info. Please, consider xz
> as a possibility. It would decrease the space needed, the time used to
> make the planets and the bandwith use.

Because bz2 is far more widely supported by tools and libraries that
people might wish to use to read the data.

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://compton.nu/