61101 - [RFE] Switch to StuffIt 5.x/6.0 for nightly binaries

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Build Config, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Adam]

The nightly binaries of Mozilla are currently distributed as StuffIt 4.5
self-extracting archives, size ~10.5MB. Using StuffIt 6.0, I am able to create a
.sea.bin archive (of the exact same contents) that is only ~9.7MB. Almost 1MB is
saved by switching to the new StuffIt 5.x algorithm.

1MB might not seem like a lot, but my personal connection is an Apple 56K
internal modem that only connects at 28.8K (and I know I'm not the only person
with a slow internet connection at home). For me, 1MB = ~10 minutes of a day
wasted trying to download the latest nightly to verify a bug. Since the archives
are self-extracting, there is no need for a user to have StuffIt Expander
installed and there will be no version incompatibilities.

Comment 1

[cls]

Mac.  Reassigning to jj.

Comment 2

[J.J. Enser]

Accepting, now that a large majority of users has 5.x installed.

historically, this was not the case when we first started to package and 
distribute nightly builds. At the time, we were using Stuffit 5.0 and received 
multiple complaints about corrupted .sit files... which were actually not 
corrupted, but simply too recent to be properly handled by most installed 
versions of Stuffit Expander.

I agree that saving 1MB (~ 10%) is another incentive to upgrade. I'm in favor of 
using 5.5 though (rather than 6.0), for the same reason as before. Any objection?

Comment 3

[Adam]

The StuffIt compression algorithm is unchanged in version 6.0. For that reason,
it doesn't really matter what version is used (as long as users have StuffIt
Expander 5.x, they will be able to expand archives created with StuffIt Expander
or DropStuff version 6.0). Further, since I think all of the archives are now
self-extracting, a user shouldn't even need StuffIt Expander to decompress (just
an app to decode MacBinary). Whatever you guys have on hand will do (there
shouldn't be any size difference between a 5.x or 6.0 archive).

Comment 4

[J.J. Enser]

fixed. installed stuffit engine and stuffit commands OSAX 5.5 on the release macs

Comment 5

[Adam]

verified. thanks!

Comment 6

[Brant Gurganus]

[RFE] is deprecated in favor of severity: enhancement.  They have the same meaning.