The file format .bz2 is a new patent-free block sorting algorithm
available from http://www.muraroa.demon.co.uk.  It gives much better
compression than standard .zip or .gz files but also takes more memory and
is somewhat slower. 

Comparisons:		Size:		Format:
circle30bpl12.tar.bz2	  778,910	bzip2
circle30bpl12.tar.gz	  952,059	gzip
circle30bpl12.zip	1,077,208	pkzip/winzip

Decompression times:

time bunzip2 -c circle30bpl12.tar.bz2 > /dev/null
real    0m4.550s

time gunzip -c circle30bpl12.tar.gz > /dev/null
real    0m0.575s

But when you're downloading an extra 200k (~3 minutes on 14.4) you won't
mind an extra 4 seconds to decompress.  This is especially true on large
packages such as the Linux kernel:

linux-2.1.72.tar.gz	9,628,900
linux-2.1.72.tar.bz2	7,822,957
Savings:		1,805,943	(A 30 minute cut for a 14.4 modem.)

Warning: There have been reports that gcc 2.7.2 will miscompile bzip2.  I
have tested the binary here by compressing it with a Solaris bzip2 (gcc
2.7.2.3) and decompressing it with a Linux bzip2 (gcc 2.7.2.3).

George Greer
greerga@circlemud.org