gzip

gzip (GNU zip) is a popular data compression program written by Jean-loup Gailly for the GNU project. Mark Adler wrote the decompression part.

We developed this program as a replacement for compress because of the Unisys and IBM patents covering the LZW algorithm used by compress. These patents made it impossible for us to use compress, and we needed a replacement. The superior compression ratio of gzip is just a bonus.