[pacman-dev] GZip compression ratios

[Travis Willard]

Just doing an update, and I noticed this:

Targets: coreutils-6.10-1  bash-3.2.033-2  cairo-1.4.14-1
gtk2-2.12.7-1  gcc-libs-4.2.3-3  mpfr-2.3.1-1  gcc-4.2.3-1
mesa-7.0.3rc1-1  acroread-8.1.2-1  automake-1.10.1-2
         kernel26-2.6.24-2  catalyst-8.01-3  curl-7.18.0-1
devtools-0.5-1  dhcpcd-3.2.1-1  e2fsprogs-1.40.5-1  faac-1.26-1
filesystem-2007.11-6  fakeroot-1.9.2-1
         findutils-4.2.32-1  flex-2.5.33-4  librsvg-2.20.0-1
libxmu-1.0.4-1  gimp-2.4.4-1  git-1.5.4-1  gpgme-1.1.6-1
groff-1.19.2-4  kde-common-3.5.8-3  lm_sensors-3.0.1-1
         kdebase-3.5.8-3  lftp-3.6.3-1  libgnomecups-0.2.3-1
libxml2-2.6.31-1  libgnomeprint-2.18.3-1  libgnomeprintui-2.18.2-1
libidl2-0.8.10-1  libmysqlclient-5.0.51-2
         libtasn1-1.3-1  libtool-1.5.26-1  lua-5.1.3-1  lvm2-2.02.33-1
 man-1.6f-2  man-pages-2.77-1  mysql-clients-5.0.51-3  nasm-2.01-1
orbit2-2.14.12-1  pcre-7.6-2
         php-5.2.5-3  pil-1.1.6-4  postgresql-libs-8.3.0-1
sdl_mixer-1.2.8-2  shared-mime-info-0.23-1  snownews-1.5.8-1
spamassassin-3.2.4-2  sqlite3-3.5.5-1  sudo-1.6.9p12-1
         tk-8.5.0-2  wget-1.11-1  which-2.19-2  xfsprogs-2.9.5-1
xine-lib-1.1.10-1  xorg-server-1.4.0.90-6

Total Download Size:    194.03 MB
Total Installed Size:   194.39 MB

Does gzip compression really give us so little as to only save 0.3 MB
over uncompressed for so many packages?  I figured the difference
would be a bit more - does it suck for compressing binary data?
Should we consider moving to a different, more compressed archive
format?  Or am I just making a mountain out of a molehill here?

--
Travis