Info-ZIP

An open source project that started in 1990 to create a portable compression/de-compression program that is compatible with PKWare's PKZip program, it was originally based on the Unzip DOS program created by Samuel H. Smith had created a year earlier but due to licensing restrictions it was soon completely rewritten. Info-Zip consists of two command line application programs Zip and 'Unzip that handle compression and decompression respectively, although the Zip program can decompress as well as compress, in addition the suite contains a few related utility programs.

The Info-Zip code has a fairly liberal Licence which meant code from the project was routinely used in projects that required file compression, archival capabilities or compatibility with the ZIP file format, however in modern use it is more common to use compression libraries such as the derivative Zlib unless the archival features of Info-ZIP are required.

Known derivatives

Mark Adler and Jean-loup Gailly who were that main authors of the Zip and Unzip programs left the project fairly early on after some disagreements and started the GZip project that was originally based on Info-Zip Code and also stated later the PNG and library versions below:

• Gzip
• Libpng
• PNG
• Zlib

Links & publications

• Info-Zip project homepage
• Info-Zip technical information

Articles

• Richard K. Goran: Info-ZIP's UnZip REXX Interface

Licence

Open source software, current versions were published under the Info-Zip Licence, prior to the release of version 2.3 the project used an ad hoc licence buried inside the readme file.

Authors

• Mark Adler (original Zip author)
• John Bush
• Karl Davis
• Harald Denker
• Jean-Michel Dubois
• Jean-loup Gailly
• Hunter Goatley
• Ed Gordon
• Ian Gorman
• Chris Herborth
• Dirk Haase
• Greg Hartwig
• Robert Heath
• Jonathan Hudson
• Paul Kienitz
• David Kirschbaum
• Johnny Lee
• Onno van der Linden
• Igor Mandrichenko
• Steve P. Miller
• Sergio Monesi
• Keith Owens
• George Petrov
• Greg Roelofs
• Kai-Uwe Rommel (OS/2 specific code)
• Steve Salisbury
• Dave Smith
• Steven M. Schweda
• Christian Spieler
• Cosmin Truta
• Antoine Verheijen
• Paul von Behren
• Rich Wales
• Mike White.