Subj : gpg | base64 to text file, how?
To   : August Abolins
From : Maurice Kinal
Date : Fri Sep 19 2025 23:45:57

Hej August!

> I'm not sure what specifically the "sh" one is.

That is a real old shell that has become a symbolic link to whatever the shell you are really using, in your case probably ash.  In my case it is bash which is a relatively new shell in the grand scheme of all that is termed unixie.  On Solaris csh (aka c-shell) was all the rage.  You can chalk this one up as a backwards compatibilty thingy.  On most, if not all, linux distributions bash is the usual suspect (gnu).

> You are quite up to date.

I try.

> ZIP was/is quite ubiquitous. What makes it a ripoff?

From my limited understanding it was originally stolen code that became known as pkzip and was made freely available to anyone caring to download and use it.  At any rate it really isn't straight compresssion as it also archives which is a totally different function.  In unixieland the archiving is usually tar and doesn't require compression which, as Martha would say, is a good thing.  In the days of nine track tapes, this was a feature since compression was vorboten.

Het leven is goed,
Maurice

 o-  -o    o-  -o   -o   -o   -o    o-   o-  -o   -o    o-   o-  -o   -o   -o
/)    (\  /)    (\   (\   (\   (\  /)   /)    (\   (\  /)   /)    (\   (\   (\
^^    ^^  ^^    ^^   ^^   ^^   ^^  ^^   ^^    ^^   ^^  ^^   ^^    ^^   ^^   ^^
.... Gif ðu hwæt on druncen misdo, ne wit ðu hit ðam ealoþe.
    If you do something wrong when drunk, don't blame it on the ale.
--- GNU bash, version 5.3.3(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
 * Origin: Little Mikey's EuroPoint @ (2:280/464.113)

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