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I have some internal conflict about zstd. On the one hand, it's truly become the superior general purpose compression codec, and I hate to look a gift horse in

I have some internal conflict about zstd. On the one hand, it's truly become the superior general purpose compression codec, and I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth there. Using it for everything from data-at-rest compression on filesystems and zswap to channel compression with rsync, it truly works wonders. And yet, I can't really deny how absolutely at odds I am with the business model and actions of the company that has sponsored its development. Personally, I've resolved that we should extract as much good from things I perceive as evil. I've stopped using Facebook platforms myself, so I'm doing as much as I can to reduce the amount of money I generate for the platform as I can. That's about the most "voting with my dollars" I can do. However, because zstd has been such a net good, I will continue to use it in projects going forward for compression needs.

FullyFunctional 4y ago
Petty perhaps, but I'm really annoyed that he didn't follow the celebrated command line tool tradition of compress, gzip, xz, lzip, bzip2, etc. I always have to remember that zstd behaves differently and you have to take extra steps to achieve the same thing.
- felixhandte 4y ago
  What differences do you have in mind? Zstd is largely compatible as a drop-in replacement for those commands. There are differences, but it's our goal to minimize them.
  - FullyFunctional 4y ago
    Did you try it? compress/gzip/bzip2/xz deletes the source file whereas zstd leaves it behind. This applies both to compression and uncompression.
coldpie 4y ago
I'm a Facebook hater too, but I can't think of any even theoretical concerns around zstd. It's freely licensed, no patent concerns, it's straight up free software. You're not giving them money or supporting their ad model by using it. It's not like Chrome where Google has an interest in making web browsing suck. What theoretical path to harm is there to adopting it more widely?
mort96 4y ago
I think the best way I can describe my discomfort is this: If someone asked you: "What organization do you want to be the owner of, and own the copyright to, the compression library which underpins all our open standards and systems?", what would you have responded? I don't know for sure which organization I would've chosen, but Facebook would certainly be at the very bottom of the list. GNU and Mozilla might be closer to the top.

FullyFunctional 4y ago

Petty perhaps, but I'm really annoyed that he didn't follow the celebrated command line tool tradition of compress, gzip, xz, lzip, bzip2, etc. I always have to remember that zstd behaves differently and you have to take extra steps to achieve the same thing.

felixhandte 4y ago
What differences do you have in mind? Zstd is largely compatible as a drop-in replacement for those commands. There are differences, but it's our goal to minimize them.
- FullyFunctional 4y ago
  Did you try it? compress/gzip/bzip2/xz deletes the source file whereas zstd leaves it behind. This applies both to compression and uncompression.

coldpie 4y ago

I'm a Facebook hater too, but I can't think of any even theoretical concerns around zstd. It's freely licensed, no patent concerns, it's straight up free software. You're not giving them money or supporting their ad model by using it. It's not like Chrome where Google has an interest in making web browsing suck. What theoretical path to harm is there to adopting it more widely?

mort96 4y ago

I think the best way I can describe my discomfort is this: If someone asked you: "What organization do you want to be the owner of, and own the copyright to, the compression library which underpins all our open standards and systems?", what would you have responded? I don't know for sure which organization I would've chosen, but Facebook would certainly be at the very bottom of the list. GNU and Mozilla might be closer to the top.