Gzip
GNU Operating System
GNU Gzip is a popular data compression program originally written by Jean-loup Gailly for the GNU project. Mark Adler wrote the decompression part. We developed this program as a replacement for compress because of the Unisys and IBM patents covering the LZW algorithm used by compress. These patents made it impossible for us to use compress, and we needed a replacement. The superior compression ratio of gzip is just a bonus. Stable source releases are available on the main GNU download server (HTTPS, HTTP, FTP) and its mirrors; please use a mirror if possible. gzip reduces the size of the named files using Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77). ...