I thought he was joking.
Then I read the name: Adler: as in Adler-32 (the checksum function that zlib uses).
Then I knew it was real. The darn author of zlib answered the question. That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks!
Then I read the name: Adler: as in Adler-32 (the checksum function that zlib uses).
Then I knew it was real. The darn author of zlib answered the question. That's as close as you're gonna get to "primary source" folks!
FYI: Mark Adler is an American software engineer, and has been heavily involved in space exploration. He is best known for his work in the field of data compression as the author of the Adler-32 checksum function, and a co-author of the zlib compression library and gzip. He has contributed to Info-ZIP, and has participated in developing the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format. Adler was also the Spirit Cruise Mission Manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. (wikipedia)
That's quite a résumé.
Yes it is. Whenever I think of PKzip I am reminded of the sad tale of Phil Katz death - partly because I share his first and last initials, and now reading his Wikipedia page I see we had more in common. Fortunately alcoholism is not my thing.
Can anyone verify these claims? I always thought it was an injustice that the original authors were treated poorly by the BBS community and treated like a big company despite just being run from home.
But it appears to be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2B9EF89CE228ED0A