[Slackbuilds-users] unrar should be discontinued

[Bojan Popovic]

Hi,

> The unrar SlackBuild should be discontinued.
> 

Sorry, I don't agree. One important difference between rar and unrar is
in their license terms.

For example, unrar license states something like this:
   3. The UnRAR utility may be freely distributed. It is allowed
      to distribute UnRAR inside of other software packages.

while rar license states something like:
  2. The software is distributed as try before you buy. This means that
     anyone may use the software during a test period of a maximum of
40 days at no charge. Following this test period, the user must purchase
     a license to continue using the software.

There is a big difference in re-distributability of the resulting
packages. So separate unrar is a sensible option. 

> The current unrar SlackBuild builds 4.0.7, which is ridiculously
> ancient. I contacted the maintainer months ago and never got a
> response.
>

I'm using a bunch of archivers/unarchivers on my machines and
basically depend on any of them a lot. So it wouldn't be a problem to
take over unrar if the current maintainer doesn't have time for it ATM.

> I recommend pulling the unrar SlackBuild and setting the rar
> SlackBuild to build unrar.

The rar SlackBuild doesn't really "builds" unrar. If you change that
setting it only installs the binary unrar which comes with rar
distribution. Of course, this unrar is not available for non-x86 or
non-x86_64 platforms like ARM for which there aren't native rar binary
packages.

Anyway, I'm aware of possible "conflict" between the two packages and
would suggest trying to find a more sensible sollution instead of
getting rid of any of the two. 

Bojan.