[TriLUG] Availability of bzip2 in 20 years?

[Rodney Radford]

Ummm, I still have an 800 bpi 9-track tape as a 'backup' of some old files from NCSU when I left my undergraduate degree...  I guess I am probably in trouble, eh?

But the best answer is that if you really care about what is on the DVDs, or any format, is to transfer them over to new formats/compressions as they come along.  That way your media and file format are always 'current' enough.  If you don't transfer them, or remember them, then perhaps you didn't miss them (like the files on my 9-track tape).

>>I'm considering backing up to bzip2 instead of gzip (.tgz) to
>>pack more on a single DVD. <end snip>

>Steve, you are missing something here. In 20 years you will not have a
>device that is capable of "reading" a DVD. (That assumes that the
>plastic disk is still in working order also.)
>   Not counting one in the closet, do you still have a 5 1/4" flopply
>drive on your PC? That is 20 year old technology. The IBM 3.5" flopply
>came into being only 19 years ago:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_System/2
>   I don't even want to think about all those 20 years old back-up tapes!  :)