tar .vs. cpio

[Henry Spencer]

Cpio pre-dates tar, I believe, and the USG/USDL/whatever-it's-called-
-this-week turkeys didn't have the brains to drop cpio when tar arrived.

The last /usr/group standards meeting tentatively recommended using tar
as the standard tape format for interchange work, due to much wider
availability and better standardization ("cpio" is not a single format,
it's at least three different ones).
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry