[opinion] bring back Octave xz source release

[Mike Miller]

jwe, all,

Can we bring back the octave-x.y.z.tar.xz source format for future
official releases?

When you switched from .tar.xz to .tar.lz with the 4.2.0 release I was
at best indifferent about it at the time. I personally prefer .tar.xz by
default, and I know I can always run 'make dist-xz' and get what I want.
No choice has been taken away from me personally.

However, I learned (or re-learned) recently that Debian source packages
only support .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.lzma, and .tar.xz. With 4.2.x
released as they are, the Debian source package has to go back to using
the .tar.gz format. This costs about 50% more storage for each release
stored in the Debian archive, and 50% more bandwidth for each user who
pulls the Octave source from Debian.

Can we please add octave-x.y.z.tar.xz to the official release process to
allow Debian and Debian derivatives to save some bytes?

I am indifferent on whether we should release both .tar.lz and .tar.xz,
but IMHO including .tar.xz would be a nice improvement in the Debian
packaging domain.

Thanks,

-- 
mike