[Debian-med-packaging] zstd package on Ubuntu LTS 16.04

[Yann Collet]

Hi


I’m contacting you as your name / email address appear on the repository tracker
associated with the zstd package on Ubuntu.
(not sure if this is correct / relevant information btw)

I wanted to get in touch regarding, specifically, the version shipped with Ubuntu LTS 16.04 “Xenial”,
aka, current Ubuntu Long-Term-Support version.

Ubuntu “Xenial” ships zstd v0.5.1.
It’s an old, experimental, version, using a format incompatible with the official Zstandard format.
(It was officialized in v1.0.0, though technically, any version >= 0.8.0 is compatible).

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.
https://repology.org/metapackage/zstd/versions
With Zstandard being planned for integration in Linux Kernel 4.14, supporting BtrFS, SquashFS and zRAM,
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.


The solution would be for Ubuntu “Xenial” to update its zstd package.
The new version (current is v1.3.1) generates data using official documented format.
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.

Are you able to do something about it?
If not, do you know which contact point could be probed for such an action?


Regards

Yann Collet
Maintainer of Zstandard
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