GZIP (GNU zip) is a popular data compression program written by
Jean-Loup Gailly <gzip@gnu.org> for the GNU project. 

This program was developed 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. 

Homepage:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/gzip.html
