Support pack/crunch compression for Java downloads (JSR-200)

Name: ca25432 Date: 04/10/2002

Support pack/crunch compression for user based Java downloads to reduce download size.

From JSR 200

This JSR will define a dense download format for JavaTM classfiles. It is expected that this format can achieve considerable size savings over compressed JAR files.

In recent years, we have had great advancement of processor speeds with comparatively poor improvements in network bandwidth, leaving us with high performing, low cost systems operating on slow networks. With the growing popularity of the JavaTM Programming Language, the overall size and volume of JavaTM applications have multiplied and it is desirable to reduce the download size for large web deployed JavaTM applications. Currently the JavaTM platform uses JavaTM Archive (JAR) encapsulation of these applications and their classes. The JavaTM archive format can compress these classes at the byte level only, leading to a meager reduction factor of about two. We need to compress the classes much more efficiently, thus making network transfers faster and therefore more reliable.