Data compression: workplan
Data compression projects
Current projects in this initiative include:
Workplan zlib-rs
An audited release is available.
Work on zlib-rs continues: we're seeking funding for Milestone 3, that completes our implementation. Please get in touch with us, if you are interested in financially supporting memory-safe zlib.
We offer technical support services for organizations wanting to adopt zlib-rs.
Project status
| status | funding target | funded |
|---|---|---|
| in progress | € 250.000 | 62% |
Upcoming milestones
Milestone 3: Performance, packaging and adoption
- Performance work: performance work for various platforms, e.g. algorithmic improvements and using avx512 instruction
- Implementation of remaining API functions: implement remaining functions that must be provided to be a complete drop-in replacement, see this issue
- Audit: a third party security audit
- One year of maintenance
- Packaging & adoption: support adoption and provide packages for Debian
Status: Pending funding. Requested funding €95.000.
Future work
Milestone 4: Above par performance
- further performance optimizations
- implementent improved codegen for state machines
See past milestones.
Workplan zstd
Work on zstd started in July 2025. The first milestone is the decompression portion of the library.
zstd milestones
- decoder Publish a crate to crates.io that contains the C interface, and a C dynamic library for zstd decompression that is API-compatible.
- encoder Adds API-compatible zstd compression.
Now the decompression is in development, we're seeking funding for the encoder. Please get in touch with us, if you are interested in financially supporting the development of memory-safe zstd.
Project status "zstd"
| status | funding target | funded |
|---|---|---|
| in progress | € 200.000 | 45% |
Workplan bzip2-rs
Work on bzip2-rs is in progress. The project aims to provide a memory-safe implementation of bzip2 with on-par performance compared to C/C++ counterparts.
Project status
| status | funding target | funded |
|---|---|---|
| in progress | € 30.000 | 100% |
In-progress milestones
Milestone 1: Memory-safe bzip2
- a rust crate that implements bzip2 encoding and decoding, and can be integrated with the rust
bzip2crate. - a dynamic library: the
libbz2-rsdynamic library defines an interface identical tolibbz2, and is a drop-in replacement for that library. It produces byte-for-byte identical output for identical input. - a binary: the
bzip2binary is written in safe rust and provides bzip2 (de)compression functionality on the command line.
Status: In progress. Kindly funded by NLnet Foundation and the Ministry of the Interior of the Netherlands.
Future milestones
Milestone 2: On-par performance
Workplan xz
XZ milestones
- a rust crate that implements multi-threaded compression and decompression, and can be integrated with the rust
xz2crate. - a dynamic library: the
liblzma-rsdynamic library defines an interface identical toliblzma, and is a drop-in replacement for that library.
Project status "xz"
| status | funding target | funded |
|---|---|---|
| pending funding | € 100.000 | 0% |
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