Misguided call for a 7-Zip boycott brings attention to FOSS archiving tools A blog post calling for a boycott of the well-known 7-Zip compression app is attracting some discussion on Reddit. However, it seems criticism for Igor Pavlov and his FOSS compression app 7-Zip is somewhat overblown and may reflect the anti-Russian sentiment of the times. 7-Zip has been around since 1999 and during that two- …
I use it for all my file compression needs. I don't care that the coder is $Nationality, I merely care that they've done a good job, are doing a good job, & will continue to do a good job for as long as the program is supported.
To the fear mongering troll, I hope you trip off a curb & fall under a donkey suffering from excessive runny fecal explosions.
Well said.
The behaviour of the Russian* government/military may be despicable but it should not justify xenophobia (or worse) against individuals who happen to by born of that country.
Individuals supporting said government action should be called out, but there is no evidence here of that.
[*] Also see China, Iran, etc.
And here are El Reg's representatives of the international troll brigade! Likely other nation state actors will follow suit shortly. Anyone else remember the sunny days when these forums were populated by actual readers AKA home grown idiots?
Still, wouldn't want them to feel to lonely, maybe we can get Amanfrommars to talk to them.
The United States didn't kill "a few thousand innocent civilians". It fought the MILITARY of Iraq, and won. It didn't attack civilians, intentionally bomb hospitals, loot washing machines, etc. like the Russian thugs are doing in Ukraine. It was the Iraqi military and government before the U.S. arrived that had no problem raping, stealing from and killing innocent civilians (see Kurds, the women Saddam's sons raped, etc.). Don't ever compare the United States military to the undisciplined conscripts and Wagner mercenaries Russia has fighting in Ukraine. No one found mass graves where Americans dumped hundreds of civilian bodies.
The United States also rebuilt Iraq, helped a democratic government form, and even left when asked by that same civilian government. And came back when asked when they couldn't defend themselves from ISIS, but that's another story. But then they left when asked again. I don't see Putin offering to rebuild Ukraine or instituting democratic elections in Russia let alone Ukraine.
The Bush administration believed democracy could be easily created at the point of a bayonet by bumping off dictators; they were wrong. Its goal was never to invade a democratic nation, execute its leader, then absorb the country into itself.
Doesn't a game of 'My illegal invasion was more honourable than yours' miss the point a bit?
Any geopolitical event that results in the mass loss of life and disruption to the many (often at the whims of a few) is terrible. Doesn't really matter who started it if your life goes to shit.
"Anyone else remember the sunny days when these forums were populated by actual readers AKA home grown idiots?"
Ahhh, the good ol' days when when descending into theRegister forums was fun and informative. Now it's just full of self-important 4chan wannabe's and getting worse by the day. I miss the old days :(
Posting anonymously and ignoring clear parallels between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the USA/UK invasion of Iraq.
Us invading a country thousands of miles away for oil isn't the same as Russia expanding it's borders. We were certainly never going to set up "Northern Iraq" and populate it with our own Religious nutters. We did it to keep a few rich cunts rich.
No, no comparisons there at all!!!
"How many did the West kill and murder in Iraq based on lies?"
Accepting that Russia is killing and murdering based on lies is a good start for you.
You can't defend Russia because its position is undefendable.
Your comment is a fallacy. Should Russia be allowed to do anything they please because USA something-something-smallpox-blankets-something in its own bloody history?
I live in the west of Russia but my country didn't have anything to do with Iraq war. The west is more than USA, as you well know it. My critique of Russia as a Finnish citizen is not borne out of care for USA but for the deplorable actions of Putin and his cabal.
Where were you at the time? I'm willing to bet a large amount of cash that you weren't in Iraq defending Saddam Hussein.
Or maybe you were? Are you that Iraqi spokesman who, in the early days of the invasion, kept going on Iraqi TV and saying the equivalent of "there is no invasion, the Americans are losing, there are no tanks driving into Baghdad"?
No, on reflection, it's probably more likely you were getting ready to start your GCSEs, amirite?
What does it matter where they were when blah blah? What the hell were they supposed to do about it? Where are you right now and what are you doing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine apart from making silly comparisons? And why should anyone expect you to be out there holding an AK?
Not a straw man argument. Just highlighting some hypocrisy. There's no shortage of that.
Somebody reminded me recently that Russia attacked a target in the UK with WMD and parts of Salisbury, Wiltshire had to be decontaminated from the G series nerve agent Novichok. It was only quick and effective work by authorities and others that more people weren’t affected and there were no fatalities. This attack also lead directly to the tragic death of a UK citizen in Amesbury, Wiltshire.
That's a bit murky.....although Porton Down has been rebranded, claiming to be a high-tech industrial estate, its still Porton Down and its still a mere 6 miles from Salisbury. The coincidental appearance of a senior member of Porton Down's staff on the scene.....its just too theatrical.
This doesn't rule out Russia but it suggests that there was a lot more to this than what we were told. I'm also quite sure that should "Russia" want someone dead that badly then they would be dead, not incapacitated.
So the Russian GRU officers visiting the UK and Salisbury at exactly the same time was a complete coincidence?
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/10/02/anatoliy-chepiga-hero-russia-writing-wall/
Amazing that!
I know where a friend was; despite being army reserve police he was one of the first into Baghdad after it fell. And he was keeping order and helping people, not looting. And "Baghdad" wasn't being bombed; hitting shopping malls is a Russian thing. The United States targeted military targets. Where were you when Saddam was bombing the Kurds?
"My critique of Russia as a Finnish citizen is not borne out of care for USA but for the deplorable actions of Putin and his cabal."
I've every faith that, should Russia decide to visit, you'll more than replicate the Winter War *and* regain some land lost in that war.
Especially, given the performance thus far of RF forces and the utter lack of logistical support.
Just keep them in the woodline like last time. ;)
Accepting that Russia is killing and murdering based on lies is a good start for you.
Sadly, lies are a normal part of war. Iraq had WMD, so invade! Syria has oil, so invade! Ukraine had been killing and murdering it's own civilians since 2014, so invade! Or there are smaller lies, aka propaganda. So example from the dear'ol Bbc-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61945914
To understand why Lysychansk matters, we need to understand the geography of the region and the role it has played in the war so far.
...Indeed, with all bridges between Severodonetsk and Lysychansk destroyed, the curve of the river presents a significant natural barrier to any Russian advance.
And then shows a graphic from the "Institute for the Study of War", which shows Russia is already well across the river and has been in the process of encircling Lysychansk. So as usual, the Bbc has the situation bass-akwards, and the river is now at the back of the Ukrainian defenders.. And thanks to the ineptitude of Ukraine's leaders, it's already far too late for Ukraine's defenders to retreat.
But such is politics. BoJo's full of false hope. Presumably he thinks the UK people will continue being distracted by Ukraine, and accept that Russia's responsible for the UK's economic situation. And not the fault of BoJo and Co. Presumably this is why the West wants a prolonged war, because once it's over, we may reasonably expect to see some 'peace dividend' and an improving economy. That won't happen because the fundamental policies that have lead to our economic problems are still in place.
But it'll probably be over by November, and perhaps Biden can still declare 'victory'. At the cost of many Ukrainian lives. Or more likely, once Russia has broken though the heavily fortified defensive lines Ukraine had built around Donbas, DPR/LPR/Russian forces will be able to roll through much harder to defend territory and probably up to the Dniepr, should they so choose.
But that's Western diplomacy for you. Zelensky's shown no willingness to negotiate terms, mostly because his far-right militias have said they'd kill him if he surrendered Ukrainian territory. But Russia's being Russia, and steadily seizing Ukraine's territory. The more oblasts Russia collects, the weaker Ukraine's negotiating position will be, and the more territory they'll have to surrender.
What a pathetic excuse of a Russian troll you are. You're not welcome here. Bog off.
You are not only a useful idiot, but an extremely gullible one as well.
But why would you think pointing out an extremely obvious and basic error by the Bbc is trolling? And why would the Bbc make such an extremely obvious and basic error?
Or are you the Russian troll...?
Here's the thing... the troll factory wasn't just about getting out individual messages -- it was about changing the nature of debate for the worse. If we keep calling people Russian trolls for having views we find dubious, there can be no debate.
"How many did the West kill and murder in Iraq based on lies?"
What lies, Bush the Lesser was up front at the very beginning, "He tried to kill my daddy".
Beyond that, I'll be honest, I have no bloody idea whyinhell I was there, beside him grasping on intel that was beyond lousy and flat out not even wrong.
I'm also trying to figure out "kill and murder", as war by definition is state sanctioned mass murder. We could go on and on about London, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the atrocity I had in the bathroom last night and still get stuck in a circular rut.
And honestly, WWII, GWOT and a sojourn into idiocy in Iraq certainly do not equal the invasion of Ukraine that's attributed variously to "a Jewish Nazi" and "Pride Parades", when it's just a Russian land grab for both a warm water port and trying to reconstitute the old Russian Empire.
“ How many did the West kill and murder in Iraq based on lies?”
Simple answer - quite a lot.
A fuller and more honest answer is absolutely nowhere near the vast number killed by years of Moslem on Moslem (Shia v’a Sunni) sectarian violence, mullahs with private militias, violence stirred and funded by various external actors (Iran mainly), the latter impact of the perversion of Islamic State, violence against ethnic minorities (Kurds/Marsh Arabs) by majority Moslem groups.
So corrected that for you.
Yes Bush/Blair were so dumb for. It having a post- is Rory strategy…. but they enabled that, it caused it. Much like most of the Western Leaning world’s shameful, enabling appeasement and inaction enabled and emboldened Assad and Russia in Syria… which cause and effect has rolled forward to Crimea and now Ukraine War.
@VoiceOfTruth - did you know, it is possible to call out the actions of more than 1 nation?
For example, millions of people marched against the Iraq war? Over 36 million people to be exact.
That you think whataboutery is some sort of answer to Russia's actions in Ukraine show more about your morality than anyone who is against Russian aggression.
You know Russia has banned a multitude of foreign companies right? Not just called for it, but have actually banned them. It has introduced laws effectively preventing foreign ownership of any media in the country too.
Lots of social media sites, banned. Foreign systems banned entirely from govt usage.
Vs one guy calling for a boycott...
Not sure what your point is, except continued misplaced whataboutery.
How many Kurds and other people Saddam didn't like were killed? And it wasn't him to invade Kuwait, not vice-versa.
Baghdad was looted by the same Iraqis who believed they could make quick money raiding their own museums. That what dictatorship reduce people to. Compare that to Egyptians who protected their own museum, and Ukrainians who protected their own monuments to avoid bomb damages as much as they can.
Still, I won't hate an Iraqi just because they happened to be born in Iraq - without knowing their story.
Paul Crawford - "The behaviour of the Russian* government/military may be despicable..."
VoiceOfTruth - "How many did the West kill and murder in Iraq based on lies? "
Wow, it's almost like you didn't finish reading to the end of Paul's sentence and just got your seething rage-on. I can almost feel the spittle through my monitor. Here let me finish it for you:
"...but it should not justify xenophobia (or worse) against individuals who happen to by born of that country."
Your welcome.
I did read both comments, in their entirety, and at first I thought VoT was agreeing with Paul (I have a horrible habit of not reading handles first). I read it as "How would the readership here had their software/lives works blocked/banned because of the despicable action of your respective government - and your government has done some shady shit."
Reading further comments, I re-checked the handles and realized that, yeah, VoT probably didn't finish reading.
Guess what? Plenty of people here were against that war as well. I seem to recall a million people marching on parliament (the only time it has been surpassed was when people marched on for what was, I think, the fifth or sixth time, to protest against brexit, but for some reason, that wasn't widely reported).
To reiterate my other post here; you don't hold the people responsible for the actions of their leaders. I'll add to that the tired cliché, "two wrongs don't make a right", and the more current equivalent, "fuck off with your whataboutery".
How many did the West kill and murder in Iraq based on lies? The adjective "despicable" is a little closer to home than many would admit.
Why do people seem to think that believing Russia is in the wrong and also believing what coalition forces did in Iraq was wrong are somehow mutually exclusive positions to hold? It's perfectly possible to believe both are "despicable" and be in no way internally inconsistent.
Where were you when Baghdad was being bombed and looted?
I was again expressing my disagreement with it, the same as I'm doing now. Not having any power other than my vote, my voice, and the ability to donate to aid workers in the region, there's not much more I can do. I don't think the Ukrainian military needs a severe asthmatic with a bad back slowing them down on the front line. No hypocrisy there at all. See how that works?
Obviously there are nuances about why each invasion happened, the justifications, the lies, the behaviour of those involved etc. that differer greatly between the two situations, but this insistence that if you believe one is bad, then you MUST believe the other is good it total horse excrement.
Well, first of all, not "the West". The UK, US and Australia. Everyone else ducked the heck out of that particular mess.
Second, the answer is "quite a lot, which was very bad, but what exactly does it have to do with the price of fish?"
Note the response to that particular debacle in "the West": Tony Blair - voted out. George W. Bush - voted out. Whichever of the revolving cast of Australian PMs was in power at the time - probably backstabbed by his/her colleagues before s/he could be voted out. Public inquiries up the wazoo.
When can we expect Putin to be voted out in a free and fair election, then?
The two are not mutually exclusive. I believe Blair and Bush should be put on trial in The Hague, because their actions were despicable.
Nothing the previous poster said suggested that the UK was whiter-than-white, so I don't think your apparent accusation of hypocrisy makes any sense.
Hell, if nothing else, calling out ongoing war crimes is far more urgent than discussing historical ones. This isn't a matter of letting people off, just I think stopping the killing is a different question from apportioning blame.
Yup! My Russian Wife is a language teacher and has been volunteering to help Ukrainian refugees learn English. She feels awkward when talking to them about the situation, but all of them have been lovely and not placed any of the blame on her. They've been dealing with Putin long enough to understand he doesn't represent the views of all the Russian people.
I know quite a few Russians. Many of those still in Russia have to rely solely on state TV and the propaganda is relentless. I believe using a VPN is now risky. Not all swallow the state version of "news", those who don't have to be very circumspect about expressing any other view because to do so risks state retribution. The ex-pats have access to a wider range of media and reach the obvious conclusion but they too risk being labelled as "foreign agents" if they say the wrong thing.
Regardless of all other considerations the situation of being in genuine fear of disagreeing with the state tells us all we need to know about Russia.
The Russian people in the main go about their daily lives and don't care two F'k's about who is doing what in Moscow. That is how it has been for centuries.
Ok, I have to say that because my partner is from a small town six hours drive north of Novosibirsk. She has been here since long before Putin took over and is now afraid to go back because she is a British citizen and has heard tales of retaliation from the border guards.
Posting AC to protect SWMBO. Lots of her family are still in Russia and Russian officialdom is not to be trifled with.
Agreed. From my experience, most keep their head down and try not to get noticed. They just want to get on with their lives without being hassled. My partner is from a small town about 12 hours drive from Moscow. She's been in the UK for 10 years now, but still has family in Russia. She also has fears about returning as she holds dual nationality. No idea what we're going to do if there's a family emergency.
I agree. The people responsible (and should therefore be punished) for the invasion of Ukraine are the Russian Government. The Russian people may support it, but they are exposed to a lot of propaganda, and if there is one thing Putin is good at, it is propaganda. Putin also pretty tightly controls what they see, so they probably aren't aware of what is *actually* happening. I suspect a lot would not support their leader if they saw the truth.
I think it's bad to deliberately target the Russian people, because by doing so, you *are* directly victimising them, and giving some credence to Putin's claims that the West is evil and is victimising Russia (even though neither is true), which just helps his propaganda to get the desired effect.
Penalise Putin, and those who enable him.
This sounds a little like the Open Source community trying to punish the author of 7-zip because he won't fully open the source of 7-zip. It's his source code. it's his choice what he does with it. Unless they have reasonable cause to suspect he has links to Putin , I think they are just using the Russian link to get everyone angry at him.
...and giving some credence to Putin's claims that the West is evil and is victimising Russia (even though neither is true)...
I think we have to be honest here, and acknowledge that the West can be a bit evil at times, but that we're talking about an awful lot of people, who are not one homogeneous mass. For example, the current goings-on in the US Supreme Court are abhorrent, but that doesn't mean for one second that everyone west of the Urals is a far-right bible-eating gun-toting nutjob.
In September 1999 there were a series of bombings in Russia which killed over 300 people, this triggered the 2nd Chechen war, the handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency.
Now what not a lot of Russians know is that three people were apprehended planting a bomb but were subsequently released when it turned out they were FSB agents.
An independent public commission to investigate the bombings chaired by Duma deputy Sergei Kovalev failed because the government refused to respond to its inquiries. Two key members of the Kovalev Commission, Sergei Yushenkov and Yuri Shchekochikhin, have since been murdered.
The bombings were one of Putin's favourite tricks, a false flag operation, that time to gain power and provide a casus belli against Chechnya.
That's how much Putin loves Russia, enough to murder 300+ innocent Russians just to boost his profile.
Yup. And Whilst I wouldn't like to bet against Putin having delusions of modern Tsardom, AFAIK there's a significant amount of oil and gas was spotted a few years ago in Donbas, in the sea of Azov, and around Crimea. <sarcasm> I'm sure Putin was desperate to liberate the opressed hydrocarbons from their opressors, so that's all right, then, eh? </sarcasm>
To add my two penn'orth to the argument going on in this comments section; I grew up during the Cold War, and nuclear warning sirens being tested now and then was a part of my childhood. Whilst I didn't undertand what was going on to the extent that I do today, I didn't hate the Russians - I hated the Russian leadership and was highly skeptical about the American leadership, both for essentially making so many millions or billions live in fear for so long.
Putin is emhatically NOT a master of propaganda. He and his propagandists are making stupid errors that no one good at propaganda would make. But because he is a dictator, he does have full control over Russia's media, so the only news most Russians encounter is what Putin wants them to hear, and like it or not, that's going to at least temporarily convince some who are subjected to it on a daily basis that there must be at least a core of truth to it.
However - the Russian regimes self-contradictory lies are catching up with the. More and more Russians are spotting the contradictions and questioning the official line as to what is happening. More and more are becoming aware that Russian asualties have been heavy, that loved ones aren't going to be coming home, and that raw conscripts were pushed into combat inadequately equipped and supplied as cannon fodder. Unsurprisingly, more and more are getting angry that young Russian lives are getting carelessly thrown away in this manner. In short, word is spreading in Russia that Putin's version of events is far from truthful, to the extent that anger is starting to overcome fear.
As for whomever claimed that Russia will eventually overrun Ukraine; I have reason to doubt that you understand the situation there or military matters in general very well.
In brief, if the Russian armed forces were what most people (myself included!) thought they were and were supposed to be ie a well equipped, well-trained and well-lead modern army then I'm pretty sure that Ukraine would have fallen completely under Russian control inside a week or two. But there is just so much evidence of the complete and utter incompetence of the current Russian military at all levels, and of corruption misappropriating funds that were supposed to maintain and update equipment mysteriously finding its way into individuals bank accounts, that no, there is no way Russia could win this war even if it could afford it for much longer, which I rather doubt.
Ask yourself - why did the Russians employ Wagner Group? What competent modern superpower would NEED to? And please don't trot out the "The Russians haven't put their best into the front line yet" because they did, right at the start - and they were heavily defeated by the Ukrainians to the point of being no longer capable of combat operations, so they were pulled out of the fighting. Sure the Russians do hve a Professional core amidst the sea of conscripts, as well as those who can operate artillery and rocket systems, but it's armed and competent boots on the ground in the frontline that take and hold territory - and that's something in very short supply in Russia, currently.
The thing about those with a thuggish criminal mentality is that they think that ll it takes to get their way is to send some heavily armed lads around to put the frightners on the intended victims (or kill them). Which , to my surprise, appears to be what has happened to the Russian military. Instead of being a professional modern fighting force, it has devolved into a criminal gang commanding a core of professional troops amidst a sea of corrupt thugs commanding barely trained conscripts. It's not an army - it's a Mafia gang writ large.
In brief, if the Russian armed forces were what most people (myself included!) thought they were and were supposed to be ie a well equipped, well-trained and well-lead modern army then I'm pretty sure that Ukraine would have fallen completely under Russian control inside a week or two.
Invading a smaller country that is at least at the same level technologically (but with lower numbers both for equipment and forces) needs a good strategy, and a decent assessment of what you as the invader are likely to encounter. Especially if that country has been very aware of your intentions, and preparing to counter it at all costs as defeat would mean just about total eradication of their culture and lifestyle. Having a 40 mile long column of vehicles driving towards Kyiv with little infantry support, expecting to be greeted as liberators with bread and flowers, is not a good strategy and points at a total lack of reality-based assessment.
But there is just so much evidence of the complete and utter incompetence of the current Russian military at all levels, and of corruption misappropriating funds that were supposed to maintain and update equipment mysteriously finding its way into individuals bank accounts, that no, there is no way Russia could win this war even if it could afford it for much longer, which I rather doubt.
There's also the Russian command structure (not limited to the army; it's everywhere): top-down, command-driven. Tactical problems and setbacks have to be reported to the commanders, who then have to think of a change, then give out a new set of commands which have to be carried out. Those commanders tend to be near the battlefield so they have a better view of the situation but are, as repeatedly shown, in a vulnerable position. In contrast, Western armies (and Ukraine has trained that way since 2014) tend to be mission-driven, leaving a lot of initiative with lower and non-commanding officers, with even the rank soldiers roughly knowing what to do if their squad leader is killed of incapacitated.
Ask yourself - why did the Russians employ Wagner Group?
Deniability. Oh, they have a Russian 'capo di capi', but that's just coincidence, no? Sure, they happen to turn up everywhere there's conflict, Syria, Libya, other parts of Africa, but that's just Assad and local warlords availing themselves of rent-a-guns. Nonono, it has nothing to do with a strategic or economic advantage for Russia, or rather, a couple of Russian oligargs. No, nothing at all, why do you think so? And now, as they happen to enjoy fighting there's a war on their doorstep now, so just a short commute. What's not to like?
The behaviour of the Russian* government/military may be despicable but it should not justify xenophobia (or worse) against individuals who happen to by born of that country.
Absolutely correct. I'd be horrified if someone tried to blame me for the behaviour of my country's leaders, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of left-pondian readers here who feel the same about theirs (and the SCOTUS).
We should always be careful to separate the actions of a country's leaders from the desires of its people. No doubt Putin has managed to whip up at least a portion of his subjects* into a frenzy through the use of captive media, such that a lot of them may even believe that the invasion of Ukraine is justified. At the end of the day, though, it's not those people's fault that they were lied to. Exactly the same argument goes for other abominations elsewhere, such as brexit, US gun laws, and so on (and before anyone supporting those things jumps on and tries to start a "discussion" on them, you know who you are, and I've no interest in re-hashing the same bullshit again today).
*an elected dictatorship has subjects, not citizens.
It is a fallacy to excuse the people who do nothing to stop their government from doing something they seemingly don't like. They are co-murderers. They are comfortable with how they live while the government commits genocides in their name. It's been like this for centuries and people prefer not to notice that it's not the government officials who commit the terror on spot, it's "regular" r*ssians, an average from the whole country. They are raised like this, in a ukrainophobic environment, educate yourself before posting such nonsense.
Othewise, you're just playing along with the murderous ruscist propaganda.
-- A Ukrainian.
This is nothing new, to quote A.R. Moxon:
“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore.”
Same applies now, but not doing everything ordinary Russians can (which admittedly is not much) they are complicit in the crimes of their government
People in this world need to learn the difference between the Government of a country, and the People who live there, particularly when said Government is authoritarian.
Despicable actions by the Government as not the fault of the People - unless, of course, said people fully support those actions, and have sufficient freedom to see different sources of information and state their disagreement without reprisal.
Putin is a megalomaniacal egomaniac trying to set himself up as the next Tsar of a regrown Russia, but my expat Russian colleague is a great person. There is no conflict in these two opinions.
I use 7zip command line for a large number of Powershell processes, it's very fast and works well when wrapped in scripted code and it handles the different tar, gz, zip and 7z formats using a single call exe. Windows desktop I use PeaZip as it's free, a little clunky sometimes but no nag screens.
I have used 7-zip for a long time and it works.
The nationality of the person who coded it is NOT of any concern of mine.
The only Russian(s) I have any ill-feeling for is Mr Putin and to a lesser degree his enablers.
Knee-jerk anti-russian campaigns are not of any use, as it enables Mr Putin to continue his 'the west hates Russia/Russians' narrative and gains support for these ideas.
I will continue to use 7-zip as it is a good and useful piece of s/w.
WinRAR Author is Russian too, he lives in Germany as far as I know. Issue is, we don't know if these people are Putin supporters or dissidents. Actually we shouldn't even have the right to ask.
GPL has a very stict "no discrimination" policy. People use open source/GPL software but aren't aware of "free in freedom speech" policy. E.g. an imaginary Ukranian missile may use 7zip internally and Pavlov wouldn't be able to discriminate it. Or, Zelezny could get sick of shareware winzip and run 7zip.
A legal analysis of "no discrimination policy" and how "no evil" policy has failed
http://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/GREENBAUM.37.4.pdf
"Paul" sounds like a total spanner. [An alternative term for a knob/knobhead].
-> British English.
How many more times do I have to read this? We do not speak British English in the UK. We speak English. Other countries may speak their own dialects of English and prepend their own adjectives, if they so desire.
"Such is the pleasure of language."
Indeed, I've no bloody idea what they speak in Liverpool, save that it seems more intelligible once heavily intoxicated.
Of course, across the pond, in West Virginia's more rural areas, I'm quite certain that the language spoken there is enraged house cat.
I enjoy hearing Scots speaking English
Favourite accents:
Highland Scottish
Western Ireland
Newcastle
Devon[1]
Yorkshire[2]
Accents are good - they show the malleability of English. I really, really don't have time for people who discriminate against people based on accent..
[1] I have to say that one - my wife is from just outside Plymouth..
[2] And not just because my dad was from there..
There is no single 'Yorkshire' accent - it's geographically a large part of England (North Yorkshire on its own is the largest English county), and the accent varies widely. The accent in Settle is very different to that in Sheffield, which is different to that in Leeds, etc. Hull is (as in many things!) different to everywhere else.
"How many more times do I have to read this? We do not speak British English in the UK. We speak English. Other countries may speak their own dialects of English and prepend their own adjectives, if they so desire\"
Fine in theory but less so in practice. Many apps may have an option for 'English' but don't specify which type. When it auto-corrects you find it isn't. Then comes the date misunderstanding ...
Time for the Milton Jones joke: "got offered a job in Texas teaching geography as a second language"
Its a shame we brexited, otherwise we could put forward an EU directive to make all software state that the language is Murican unless the "English" is the Britsh flavour. In fact if software was mandated to have both, it might teach left-pondians how to spell.
ALERT I not anti-American, I have some great American friends and have much admiration for many things they do. Its just that it gets on my tits when they say things like "different than" because "different" is not a comparator. Things can be "bigger than", "cooler than", "longer than", "stickier than" but they can never be different than. ie big vs small, cool vs warm, long vs short etc., but different vs ?????
"One of the most appalling things I ever heard was John Wayne in a film saying 'Talk American'."
I recall the film and this born US citizen would've instantly countered, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Moronic".
But only because I can't speak any of the indigenous tongues.
I did have an opportunity to enjoy "cussing out" a Karen in the wild, who demanded someone speaking Spanish to a family member speak English. I harangued her with profanity in Sicilian Italian, German, Yiddish (yeah, six of one, half dozen of the other, mostly), Arabic and Hindi. I stopped there because I couldn't recall much of the profanity that I had learned in Russian and Chinese decades ago.
If you think being blasted in German is bad, you really don't want to try it on for size in Arabic. ;)
The poor creature scurried off, much to the relief of all in that region.
Because, nothing succeeds like excess!
"In fact if software was mandated to have both, it might teach left-pondians how to spell."
Don't blame us in the US, it isn't our fault that the occasionally United Kingdom didn't bother documented English until a bit of a tiff started in 1776. Giving 1150 AD to be generous, it seriously took you 600 years to document your own blasted language?!
What were you doing during all that time, bringing the world civilization and blood pudding?
I'll just get my hat...
Ah. Technically an attempt to document the language was made in 1604, and a credible effort was published in 1775.
Maybe the history books are wrong. Perhaps people in North America read that book and suddenly realised they were speaking the wrong language. Faced with the choice to learn English or pursue their own destiny..
But in answer to your question, yes.
I blame it all on Noah Webster's attempt to simplify English.
Which makes a certain amount of sense, given that many of the excess letter spellings he objected to are thought to have been introduced by scribes copying documents who were either being paid by the letter or (more likely) just thought that a few 'u's around the place made it look more French and upmarket.
Nonetheless, I find I prefer English orthography to North American. It can make learning German more difficult than it needs to be when one has to continually translate between English and North American to keep Duolingo's bloody owl happy.
Perhaps people in North America read that book
US 'English' is largely a constructed language designed to be simplified enough for new immigrants (initially the German ones) to learn easily. In some ways it was a noble effort - it's just a shame that it hasn't progressed since.
(There was real concern early on that the dominant US language wouldn't be English.. Just like now where the dominant language is starting to shift to be Spanish - certainly in the southern US)
Giving 1150 AD to be generous, it seriously took you 600 years to document your own blasted language?
It didn't start being modern English until about 1550.. So that's only 200 years!
And for a lot of that, consistent spelling was somewhat of a luxury - until you get near-universal literacy then some variation is to be expected. As we are finding out now[1].
And let's not forget, English is (and always has been) a living language that shifts and changes constantly[2]
[1] I was moaning to my wife recently that no--one else seems to remember how to parse verbs correctly any more. More and more, the grammar structures of US English seem to be creeping in (AKA 'verbalising nouns', the inability to use the part tense properly etc etc). It's even affecting her even though she's a fairly well educated woman.
[2] Not always for the good. See [1] above. But trying to resist change leads one down the French path and as a British male it's not a comfortable idea..
We speak English in the UK.
Americans have a problem with some things and have to add a description, e.g. British English
They can't work out a British "pavement" and have to describe where it is and what you have to do on it - "side walk".
The rest of the world go "horse riding", the Mericans are not so sure and have to describe where you ride the horse - "horse back riding"
There are many more examples that I can't think of immediately, but I'm sure I've seen British comedians do whole gigs based on it.
Considering that many times no saddle was used (many of the farm boys couldn't afford one, and why would you saddle a plow horse in the first place) it just meant that you were riding the horse back and not a saddle.
You could ride a horse, with saddle, or you could be horse back riding without a saddle.
Hi, PeaZip author here.
While I appreciate (and thank) the effort of FlatHub community in building and maintaining a Flatpak version of PeaZip, I would recommend to most users to chose one of the available Portable packages for Linux https://peazip.github.io/peazip-linux.html to test the application without requiring installation, with a 12 MB download.
About the main topic, I'm saddened the moment we are living is threatening our long-living assumption of the possibility of a world where people of different countries and cultures can freely cooperate for a common good, which is one of the main pillars of Open Source spirit. I can only wish Igor to keep up the good work.
We installed the Flatpak package to have a look, and while it works fine, it does pull in a whopping two-thirds of a gigabyte of KDE dependencies to do it,
When <bold>giorgiotani</bold> says his software is only 12MB, it makes you realise why people hate Flatpack and all the other non-rpm or deb formats so much. Yes they sometimes have a use, but 95% of the time, deb or rpm can be used and it will run on virtually all flavours of linux which use the appropriate packagers.
"95% of the time, deb or rpm can be used and it will run on virtually all flavours of linux which use the appropriate packagers."
Not always. Dependency management on Linux can often require distro-specific packages for some things, mainly depending on how many shared objects they're going to use. Yes, some people statically link everything to get around this, and small programs probably don't need that many dependencies and will be more portable, but making one .deb is usually not enough. Having said that, Flatpack is often a very poor solution to this problem.
"Dependency management on Linux can often require distro-specific packages for some things, mainly depending on how many shared objects they're going to use."
Dependencies, library paths, odd other path issues and at times, a massive amount of profanities... ;)
Especially when someone takes the LSB standards and just tosses them into the circular file.
It works every time!
I'm sure they're pretty much correct that the vast majority are better off with the deb or rpm, depending.
In my ill-considered opinion, the only place for Flatpak is commercial software as it allows a single binary distribution for almost all desktop and server Linux.
It's pointless for open source, as somebody will have made a "normal" package manager package for all the common distributions.
After all, Flatpak is basically the same as macOS application bundles.
"I can only wish Igor to keep up the good work."
To hell with that, I say everyone who can code pull his source code and fix every bug that they can trace, then toss it his way without taking any credit.
You know, business as usual. ;)
I'll help out once this damned cataract is removed, otherwise I'm living on headache planet.
This post has been deleted by its author
That's probably because the kind of dweeb that complains about 7-zip has probably never run a web server, let alone a Postgres server with all the great work done over years by "the Russians" – the collective noun affectionately used by Postgres developers to refer to the many Russian and ex-soviet developers who have for years contributed to it.
I use whatever I need to use. Unless the company is involved in war crimes or human right violations, I don't care what they do. They can sort it out or not. I'll find something else if worse comes to worst.
I've got my own damn problems fighting off scammers and grifters and assorted other troublemakers that directly impact my life. The existential can get in line.
I would if I wanted the functionality. I wouldn't if using it funded murder, but it's open source, so I'm not paying anyone. The current developers of it (there appear to be some occasionally pushing changes) probably aren't murderers, so as long as donations went to them, that would also be acceptable.
Unless the company is involved in war crimes or human right violations, I don't care what they do.
Someone I know works for a small organisation whose webshop was built and run by a Russian company. Whether or not they were supporting the war, there would be the problem of paying for their services, as well as the possibility of network blocking as a sanction being discussed early in the war, with the webshop then going black.
Turns out they had already moved to the US years ago (and they're pretty much anti-war, modulo the effects on people they know back there), so in this case it turned out to be a non-problem
Not a fork.
It requires 7-zip libraries, and a lot of others: from https://peazip.github.io/peazip-sources.html
7z (LGPL), p7zip (LGPL), 7-Zip-zstd codecs (LGPL), Brotli (MIT License), Zstandard (Dual license BSD / GPLv2), ARC (GPL), ZPAQ/LPAQ/PAQ8* (GPL), QUAD (LGPL) / BALZ (public domain) / BCM (Apache v2), strip and UPX (GPL) binaries are needed to support mainstream file formats."
I can understand the theory of boycotting stuff they benefit from. I can understand boycotting sending them anything -- money or goods.
But I don't immediately see that 'boycotting' myself by not using 7-zip is a good idea.
Off hand, it seems like the idea is Russian social-media trolling.
7-zip user here... always will be ever since I discovered it.
Previously I used ZipGenius, but it lacked the feature of splitting 7z files into multiple files.
What is great about this feature is, if you want to transmit a 4Gb archive over an unstable link, you break it up in lots of smaller 7z files, then transfer those files. If one or two fails, you just retransmit the failed ones without having to retransmit the whole 4Gb file.
A trick I have learnt from dial-up days. Remember those, when your transfers are at whim of noise and scratches on the line...
It was also the most common way a lot of the early warez scene operated, hence why RAR took off in that area, the ability to take software and break it into dozens if not 100+ 1mb files that you rejoined later on once you had them all down. Not that I ever did anything like that back in the early 1990s of course, it was older boys that did that sort of thing!
Nowt wrong with OS/2, especially when compared against the rancid abomination that passed for Windows 3.1's attempts at multitasking... Anyone who needed to be able to efficiently run multiple Win3.1 applications in parallel would really have been doing themselves a giant favour by running them under OS/2 - the first time I fired up my newly-purchased copy of Warp and saw how Amiga-like it made my PC, after having been cursing it for the previous few months every time it ground to a halt until whatever task I'd started came to an end, was the day I realised for the first time just how powerful PC hardware actually was, and how godawful Windows 3.1 really was...
As the source is available, feel free to peruse for the backdoor.
Having ditched Windows, 7-zip is not a requirement for me anymore; though I couldn't even tell you the name of who worked on whatever the default archive tool is in in $Distro of choice.
7Zip served me pretty well though to Win7 otherwise.
Basically this is spill over from when gen-Z types want to shame a celebrity, they invoke "cancel culture", dengrate someone or something and get it to build momentum on social media, finally destroying people and things by making them too toxic and untouchable.
Rather sad really.
funny, I didn't think 7 zip was supported by the Russian government, and the code is there for everyone to see. Which is fortunate, because I was updating a program to make better use of it via the API so it could handle any type of file that 7-zip could. And honestly the documentation is not ideal, and queries to the mailing list seems to only have resulted in "it's in the documentation". Which 'it' wasn't and I had to look at the source code to work out how to use it.
API documentation aside, (and at least it has one) I've been using this for a long time as it is convenient, flexible and unobtrusive.
Russia has become an autocratic state again, but that doesn't mean the people of Russia all support what the government does, and such trolling is offensive and really people should know better than to behave like that
When I make source available for other people, I go out of my way to make it as easy as possible to build, aiming to get it down to a single file to double-click/run/execute/etc. I really hate it when I pick up some source from somewhere and I have to spend several days just getting it into a state when I can get it to build.
Yep, that keyboard warrior is clearly a 13 year old moron. Probably doesn't even know what Sourceforge is. It isn't "modern" enough. Plus the GPL never specified you need to have access to the repo. Just some sort of code access (i.e a tarball if the twit knew what that was)
If my open-source projects *had* to be on Microsoft's sh*tpiece of a code dump, I would honestly just close up the source.
This article wasn't bad but frankly these kinds of kids are probably better ignored rather than discussed.
But I use and will continue to use 7-zip as a good free alternative.
Both made by Russian programmers, but I'm not entirely sure what that has to do with anything, we're not supposed to be in the business of blaming random individuals of a country for all acts committed by a government.
I really don't get the point of WinRAR, if I'm honest. Why would I pay to "zip" something when that functionality is not only available in other free programs but is also actually built into Windows? Furthermore, if I send someone a ZIP, then they're almost certainly going to be able to open it on any operating system without having to download or install anything. I do like 7-Zip, but practicality and ubiquity win out for me when sharing files with others.
Er, yeah, it is. A CLI option is great for many cases, and whatever you use will provide one, so you're not losing that option. A GUI can be useful, not only for users that don't like the CLI, but also for users who are entirely comfortable but understand that GUIs can offer useful features. For example, if you have an archive that contains, let's say, twenty thousand files, and you want to understand its structure and contents, which option do you want:
1. A CLI command that prints all of the filenames to a console, you pipe it through a sorter, then you have to read it page by page to find what's in the archive.
2. A CLI command that prints one directory, and in order to explore the contents of that directory or to move up, you run the command over and over, each time specifying a full path.
3. A GUI that can print part of a directory structure in a visually-understandable method, permit you to move around in the structure without reissuing commands, and also has all the functions you might want to perform exposed as controls.
I doubt you're using Lynx to read this article, so I'm guessing you also understand that not everything is best done on the command line.
Like most people, I get to vote from time to time but like everyone else I don't really get a say in what the government's doing, at home or overseas. So its difficult to get a real feel for patriotic fervor, "We're good, they're evil" thing. I suppose I'm still naive, in Christmas 1914 mode, where I'd rather play football with "the enemy" rather than kill them, since like 1914 we're involved in a quarrel that's nothing to do with him or me, its really an internecine fight between a small group of ideologues who just need me to sacrifice my health, wealth and indeed life to further their aims.
I'm actually a bit surprised that some "government spokesman" hasn't lighted on 7-Zip as a "threat to national security", its obviously sending your innermost thoughts directly to President Putin's desk.
(FWIW -- Prior to 2014 I thought that Ukraine would become a bridge between Russia and the EU, possibly even joining the EU once it had finally organized its economy out of 'basket case' mode. Then we had an outbreak of Cold Warriors, people who can't let go of the past because, obviously, their jobs depend on it. Peace is Very Bad For Business, obviously.)
Lack of a GUI version of mainstream 7-Zip for Linux is unimportant. For instance, the Linux Mint repositories contain several graphical utilities for compression activities in universally compatible 7z format. I don't know whether these are simply wrapped around Pavlov's code or contain derivatives tweaked in various ways.
Hi, NanaZip author here.
Actually, I am a faithful 7-Zip user since 2011 when I got the 7-Zip 9.20 installer binary, until I created NanaZip in late 2021. (But I am still a 7-Zip user in strictly.) It's a professional tool for many people. I often use it to pre-analyze the structure of executable file.
I can prove the source code of 7-Zip mainline is easy to build and 100% clean with code-level modularize.
When I read the source code of 7-Zip, I feel I am talking with an old school software developer, with the similar feeling with my senior.
They both intend for smaller binaries. So, I can understand why the author doesn't like "/GS", "/DYNAMICBASE" and the compiler flags which can make binary expansion. Also, they both care about old Windows compatibility. So, I can understand why the author don't do some modernization work.
Based on these, I created NanaZip because I want to integrate some modern things which not acceptable by 7-Zip author. (As same as my senior, he doesn't like App Model and Windows Runtime. But I want to use App Model and Windows Runtime XAML to modernize the user experience.)
Kenji Mouri
As a Ukrainian, I cannot agree with the sentiment. This article is insulting. r*ssia has been spreading ukrainophobic moods for several centuries, the people there have been raised in such an environment for rather long time. They've committed numerous genocides in the past and keep doing this. The fact that the outside world chooses to perceive their "contributions" as something positive is alarming. It's this kind of blindness that supports them while they commit atrocities. There's been a lot of propaganda with finding "one good r*ssian" and showing that person to everybody in an attempt to whitewash their image. And this works. Y'all just go along with conveniently not noticing all those blood trails. This hasn't only happened to Ukraine, no. There's a number of nations that's been suffering from this serial murderer of foreign cultures. It's no surprise that r*ssia's been widely known as a prison of nations in Eurasia.
So yes, boycott all r*ssian or this maniac country will knock on your door too, one day. Posting apologetic pieces like this only makes it sooner. You just aid the ruscist nazis in their goal. No r*ssian is innocent — they support that the terrorists do, they are comfortable doing nothing about it.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
