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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Hi<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">I’m contacting you as your name / email address appear on the repository tracker<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">associated with the zstd package on Ubuntu.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">(not sure if this is correct / relevant information btw)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">I wanted to get in touch regarding, specifically, the version shipped with Ubuntu LTS 16.04 “Xenialâ€,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">aka, current Ubuntu Long-Term-Support version.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Ubuntu “Xenial†ships zstd v0.5.1.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">It’s an old, experimental, version, using a format incompatible with the official Zstandard format.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">(It was officialized in v1.0.0, though technically, any version >= 0.8.0 is compatible).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">That’s a problem because Ubuntu “Xenial†is not compatible with the rest of the world, all other repositories have already switched to versions > v1.0.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><a href="https://repology.org/metapackage/zstd/versions">https://repology.org/metapackage/zstd/versions</a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">With Zstandard being planned for integration in Linux Kernel 4.14, supporting BtrFS, SquashFS and zRAM,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">it’s an issue for userland tools, as they can’t rely on libzstd, since in some case (Ubuntu LTS and derivatives), the version is incorrect, so it generates incompatible data.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">The solution would be for Ubuntu “Xenial†to update its zstd package.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">The new version (current is v1.3.1) generates data using official documented format.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">It’s also able to read data already compressed with v0.5.1, thanks to “legacy support†module (enabled by default), so it’s not disruptive for existing users.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Are you able to do something about it?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">If not, do you know which contact point could be probed for such an action?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Regards<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Yann Collet<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt">Maintainer of Zstandard<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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