Open Source and Freeware Applications

The following short survey points out the substantial characteristics of the applications. At the end of the article references to corresponding websites are appended.

The terms freeware and open source are used in a general sense. Detailed information about legal conditions are available at the appropriate websites.

7-Zip

Freeware, Open Source

Microsoft Windows

7-Zip is compatible to ZIP, GZIP and BZIP2. The own 7z format uses the compression methods LZMA and PPMd. The source code of LZMA is available in a system development kit (LZMA-SDK).

Development and maintenance: Igor Pavlov

BZIP2

Freeware, Open Source

various operating systems, command line version

BZIP2 is based on the open source library LIBBZIP2.

Development and maintenance: Julian Seward (and others)

GZIP

Freeware, Open Source

various operating systems, command line version

The source code of GZIP is available under GNU GPL, data format and compression algorithm are specified in RFC 1951 and 1952.

Development and maintenance: Jean-loup Gailly, Mark Adler (and others)

MacZip

Freeware, Open Source

Apple MacOS

MacZip is based on Info-ZIP and ZIP/UNZIP respectively and provides a graphical user interface for Apple MacOS.

Development and maintenance: Dirk Haase (and others)

TUGzip

Freeware

Microsoft Windows

Development and maintenance: Nicolas Tim Ginzel, Christian Kindahl

UltimateZip

Freeware

Microsoft Windows

Development and maintenance: Oliver von Schleusen

WiZ

Freeware, Open Source

Microsoft Windows

WiZ is based on Info-ZIP and ZIP/UNZIP respectively and provides a graphical user interface for Microsoft Windows.

Development and maintenance: Mike White (and others)

ZIP, UNZIP

Freeware, Open Source

various operating systems, command line version

ZIP and UNZIP are developed by the Info-ZIP working group. MacZip (Apple MacOS) and WiZ (Microsoft Windows) provide graphical user interfaces for ZIP and UNZIP.

Development and maintenance: Ed Gordon (and others)