[Fsf-Debian] rar/unrar

Bryan Quigley gquigs at gmail.com
Wed Oct 17 20:42:03 UTC 2012


Hi All,

Continuing my attempt to find non-free programs that we no longer need
unrar/rar came to my attention.   It's some of the most popular installed
non-free packages in both Debian [1<http://popcon.debian.org/non-free/by_inst>]
and Ubuntu [2 <http://popcon.ubuntu.com/restricted/by_inst>].  And
apparently there is a free software program unar
[3<http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/unar>]
that can replace the unrar part.

Distributing the rar program, which is shareware (40 days need to
register/buy), only helps people keep using the rar compression file
format.  This isn't one of those cases where we have to sacrifice anything,
7z (according to filetype:7z google search results) is more popular and has
better compression in all useful cases today
[4<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAR#Comparison_to_other_compression_algorithms>].


I think it makes sense to remove both the unrar and rar nonfree programs
from the nonfree repo in either Wheezy or Wheezy+1.  If not, we should
investigate why so many users are installing unrar/rar.  Unrar has a number
of Dependants that pull it in.  Many of them I don't understand why
(Evince, Okular).

Thanks!
Bryan

[1]http://popcon.debian.org/non-free/by_inst
[2]http://popcon.ubuntu.com/multiverse/by_inst
[3]http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/unar
[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAR#Comparison_to_other_compression_algorithms
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