What is bzip2?

Active Library Public Owner: Org

Contributing

The bzip2 development happens in the ProjT Launcher repository:

Branch	Purpose
develop	Main development branch
release-*	Stable release branches
Feature branches	Experimental work (may be rebased)

Report Issues

Please report bugs via GitHub Issues.

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⚠️ Important Notices

Warning

This program and library compresses data by performing several non-trivial transformations. Unless you are 100% familiar with all the algorithms contained herein, you should NOT modify the compression or decompression machinery. Incorrect changes can lead to disastrous loss of data.

Disclaimer

NO RESPONSIBILITY IS TAKEN FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA ARISING FROM THE USE OF THIS PROGRAM/LIBRARY.

The complexity of the algorithms makes it impossible to rule out the possibility of bugs. Do not compress critical data without backups.

Patents

To the best of our knowledge, bzip2/libbz2 does not use any patented algorithms. However, no patent search has been conducted, so no guarantee can be given.

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Copyright & Licensing

Copyright (C) 1996-2010 Julian Seward <jseward@acm.org>
Copyright (C) 2019-2020 Federico Mena Quintero <federico@gnome.org>
Copyright (C) 2021-2025 Micah Snyder
Copyright (C) 2025 YongDo-Hyun
Copyright (C) 2025 grxtor

Licensed under the bzip2 license (BSD-like). See bzip2/COPYING for full text.

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Related Documentation

• zlib — Alternative compression library
• QuaZip — ZIP archive wrapper
• Third-party Libraries — All external dependencies

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External Links

• Bzip2 GitLab
• Bzip2 Sourceware
• Wikipedia: Bzip2