On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 08:17:58AM -0600, Dan Drake wrote:
> Whose bright idea was it to have `j' be the option for handling
> bzipped tarballs? 

There was a conflict with the original GNU tar application binding for
bzip2: 'I'.  It conflicts with other *NIX/BSD'ish use of that same
option.  Other characters were suggested, but 'j' was settled upon as
the default by the GNU tar maintainers.  I'm assuming that Brad at the
Math department ran into the same conflict, but instead of following the
development discussions on the GNU tar email list, he chose -y because
it wasn't being used.  This last is just an assumption on my part, but
knowing Brad, I don't think it's too far from the truth.

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>                 | a.k.a. ^chewie
http://www.wookimus.net/                            | s.k.a. gunnarr
Get my public key, ICQ#, etc. $(mailx -s 'get info' chewie at wookimus.net)
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