[pmoriarty]

"Look at how much padding the tar format has. And tar is a good example of how "useless padding" was used to extend the format to support larger files. So this supposed "flaw" has been in tar for dozens of years, with no disastrous effects at all."

Just because it's in tar doesn't mean that the design is flawless. tar was created a long time ago, when a lot of things we are concerned with now weren't even thought of.

Deterministic, bit-reproduceable archives are one thing that tar has recently struggled with[1], because the archive format was not originaly designed with that in mind. With more foresight and a better archive format, this need not have been an issue at all.

[1] - https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-tar/2015-05/msg00005...

[rootbear]

The name tar comes from Tape ARchive. Lots of padding makes sense when you know that tar was originally used to write files to magnetic tape, which is highly block oriented. The use of tar today as a bundling and distribution format is something of a misapplication, as it lacks features one might want of such a program.

[rolandog]

Thanks for such an amazing rabbit-hole of a link.