[libvirt] Re: [PATCH] also allow use of XZ for Qemu image compression

[Jim Meyering]

Charles Duffy wrote:
> Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Daniel Veillard wrote:
>>>   Hum, I realize that support of LZOP was added after 0.7.0, so we never
>>> made a release with it (well except for git snapshot which may have been
>>> pushed).
>>>   I wonder if the best is not to just drop the lzop option altogether
>>> and stick xz as a package dependancy until we have found a way to
>>> provide at the API level which compression options are actually
>>> available.
>>>
>>>   Opinions ?
>>
>> Dropping lzop sounds good.  It seems lzop is not very popular.
>> We don't need that many choices.
>
> lzop may not be popular, but it is distinct -- a minimum of 3x faster
> than every other compressor offered as an option.
>
> As the decision to use compression at all is offered as a disk space
> vs performance tradeoff, having an option with minimal performance
> impact is crucial inasmuch as it makes compression valuable to users
> for whom the tradeoff otherwise might not have made sense at all.

Good point about it being one of the fastest.
I shouldn't have mentioned the subjective "popular".
Usefulness trumps that.  I suppose Daniel, Cc'd, will decide.