uc2/ROADMAP.md

UC2 Roadmap

Phase 1: Decompression MVP (DONE)

• Port Bobrowski's libunuc2 decompression engine
• CLI tool with list/extract/test/pipe modes
• CMake build system (Linux, MSVC fallback for super.bin)
• Win32 compat layer carried over
• Tagged v3.0.0-alpha.1

Phase 2: Original Compression Engine (DONE)

• Port LZ77+Huffman compressor from ULTRACMP.CPP, TREEGEN.CPP, TREEENC.CPP
• Write as the inverse of the decompressor (Bobrowski's code is the spec)
• Compression levels 2=Fast, 3=Normal, 4=Tight, 5=Ultra
• CLI create mode (uc2 -w), compression level flag (-L)
• SuperMaster dictionary support (built-in 49 KB dictionary)
• Round-trip testing: 37 unit tests + CLI integration tests
• Round-trip testing vs original uc2pro.exe in DOSBox (Direction: original creates → UC2 v3 extracts — verified. Reverse direction is a known limitation: the original UC2 Pro cannot read UC2 v3 archives due to compression bitstream differences.)
• Backward compatibility with original UC2 Pro (listing + extraction verified for multi-file archives in both directions in automated DOSBox-X test).
• Custom Huffman tree compatibility with original UC2 Pro. Currently uses the default tree for all blocks (~40% worse compression for text, ~0% for random data). Our treegen produces valid trees but the original's nuke1 ASM kernel depends on the exact tree shapes from the original TreeGen. Improving this requires bit-exact treegen or understanding nuke1's tree assumptions.
• Give UC2 a voice: status and progress messages with personality, continuing the original's tradition ("Do not worry, you have got the tree", "decompression always lightspeed", FAST/TIGHT/S-TIGHT levels, BoosterOn()). Not a --fun flag — just how UC2 talks. Warm, confident, slightly quirky, never annoying. Suppressed by -q/--quiet for scripting.

Phase 3: Modernized Master-Block Deduplication

UC2's signature feature from 1992, ahead of its time. Modernize into something no mainstream archiver offers.

• Content-fingerprint file grouping (FNV-1a hash of first 4096 bytes)
• Custom master-block generation from largest file in each group
• MASMETA central directory records with full metadata
• Masters compressed with SuperMaster, files compressed with custom master
• CLI integration test validating master deduplication round-trip
• Content-defined chunking (CDC) with rolling hashes (Gear or Rabin-Karp) replacing fixed-block exact matching
• Merkle DAG of deduplicated blocks (Git pack-style content addressing)
• Cross-archive and cross-version dedup via shared block stores
• Near-duplicate detection via simhash/minhash for fuzzy dedup (patched executables, slightly edited documents)
• Delta compression across file versions (xdelta/bsdiff-style binary deltas stored against master blocks)

Phase 4: Modern Compression Backends

Pluggable algorithms behind new method IDs; original Method 4 kept for backward compatibility.

• ANS/rANS entropy coder as drop-in Huffman replacement (~5KB pure C, 5--15% ratio improvement on skewed distributions)
• zstd-inspired dictionary compression integrated with master blocks (deduped masters become shared zstd dictionaries — unique synergy)
• LZ4 ultra-fast mode for real-time or low-resource scenarios
• Content-aware preprocessing pipeline: - BWT (Burrows-Wheeler) for text - E8/E9 transform for x86 executables (BCJ filter) - Delta filter for structured/tabular data
• Built-in uc2 --benchmark mode: test all methods on input, report results

Phase 5: Quantum-Resistant Encryption

No mainstream archiver offers post-quantum encryption.

• CRYSTALS-Kyber (NIST PQC standard) for key encapsulation, pure C (PQClean project, public domain)
• AES-256-GCM for authenticated payload encryption
• Hybrid mode: classical ECDH + Kyber for transition period
• Passphrase-based key derivation via Argon2
• Per-file selective encryption within archives

Phase 6: DOS / FreeDOS / Retro-Computing

• DJGPP cross-compilation toolchain
• Test on real vintage hardware and DOSBox/FreeDOS
• Method 80 (Turbo) support
• Multi-volume archive spanning across physical media (floppies)
• Self-extracting archives per platform (DOS COM/EXE, Linux ELF, Windows PE)
• ANSI art progress display, CP850 codepage handling
• Position as the archiver for retrocomputing preservation: disk images, ROM collections, BBS archive redistribution

Phase 7: Cryptographic Integrity & Timestamping

• BLAKE3 content hashing for every block (fast, pure C, ~15KB)
• OpenTimestamps integration: cryptographic proof of archive creation time anchored to Bitcoin blockchain (one HTTP call, small proof blob stored in archive metadata)
• Useful for legal/forensic archiving, software provenance, digital preservation

Phase 8: Decentralized & Cloud Integration

• IPFS pinning: uc2 --ipfs-pin archive.uc2 to publish, uc2 --ipfs-get <CID> to retrieve
• Content-addressable dedup maps directly to IPFS CIDs; master blocks become sharable across users ("swarm dedup")
• Cloud archiving backend: uc2 --s3 s3://bucket/path for streaming compress-to-cloud with dedup-aware incremental uploads
• Filecoin/Sia for decentralized paid storage (optional)

Phase 9: Zero-Knowledge Proofs (Experimental)

ZK proofs extend the Merkle DAG and encryption layers with privacy-preserving verification. Most valuable for decentralized and compliance scenarios; heavyweight, so implemented as an optional module.

• Prove archive integrity without revealing contents — ZK proof that the archive's Merkle root matches claimed file hashes, without exposing the tree structure. Enables auditing of IPFS-shared encrypted archives.
• Selective disclosure from encrypted archives — prove a specific file (by hash) exists in an encrypted archive without decrypting anything else. Useful for collaborative encrypted team archives.
• Verifiable deduplication — ZK proof that master-block dedup was performed correctly across archives without revealing block contents. Builds trust in distributed dedup without data leaks.
• Compliance proofs — prove properties ("archive created before date Y", "archive does not contain file with hash H") without revealing contents. For regulatory/legal use cases.
• Implementation: Halo2 or Bulletproofs (no trusted setup) via Rust-to-C wrapper or WASM bridge; compile-time optional module. STARKs preferred over SNARKs for quantum resistance alignment with Phase 5.

ZK Feasibility Notes

ZK adds genuine value for privacy-focused decentralized archiving (Phases 7--8) but is heavyweight for a CLI tool. SNARKs require pairing-friendly curves (not quantum-resistant); STARKs are preferred as they align with the post-quantum direction and need no trusted setup. Proof generation is slow (seconds to minutes for complex circuits) so this is an opt-in feature, not on the critical path. Prototype in a fork first.

Phase 10: Ecosystem Integrations

libarchive plugin

Highest-leverage integration. Adding UC2 read/write support to libarchive makes .uc2 a first-class format for bsdtar, cmake, pkg(8), file-roller, Ark, and dozens of other tools across the Linux ecosystem.

• libarchive read handler (decompression/listing)
• libarchive write handler (compression, once Phase 2 is done)

Streaming dedup ingestion

Position UC2 as a deduplicating storage layer that other tools pipe into. No other CLI archiver offers this.

rsync -a /data/ | uc2 --ingest repo.uc2      # dedup on receive
tar cf - /project | uc2 --ingest backup.uc2   # dedup tar stream
cp -a /snapshot/ | uc2 --ingest backup.uc2    # incremental dedup

• uc2 --ingest mode: streaming input with master-block dedup
• Incremental snapshots: uc2 snapshot /path repo.uc2 (borg/restic-style deduplicating backups without filesystem support)

Foreign archive format support

Read (and optionally write) other archive formats, enabling UC2 as a universal archive tool and migration path for legacy collections.

• ZIP read/write (deflate, store; the universal baseline format)
• RAR read (v4/v5; for extraction from existing collections)
• TGZ/tar.gz read/write (tar + gzip; Unix ecosystem staple)
• ISO 9660 read (CD/DVD images; retro-computing preservation)

File manager plugins

Bobrowski already shipped prototypes; update for UC2 v3.

• Midnight Commander VFS plugin (update misc/mc.ext and misc/uuc2)
• Total Commander WCX plugin (update misc/unuc2-wcx.c)

Phase 11: Advanced Features

• Archive-as-filesystem: FUSE mount for .uc2 on Linux (read-only, decompress-on-the-fly with master-block caching)
• Compression tournaments / community challenges
• Neural/learned compression preprocessor (modern platforms only, not DOS — optional compile-time module)
• Jupyter kernel for interactive archive exploration and compression research (Python, building on foxkernel experience): - Rich HTML tables for archive listings with compression ratios - Interactive dedup graph visualization (master-block DAG: which files share blocks, space savings) - Inline benchmark charts comparing methods/levels (ratio vs speed) - Version diff visualization between archive snapshots - Huffman tree / ANS state table visualization for algorithm development

Testing Strategy

• Create reference UC2 archives using original uc2pro.exe in DOSBox
• Unit tests: magic detection, Fletcher checksum, CP850->UTF-8
• Integration: extract test archives, compare SHA-256 against manifest
• Phase 2: round-trip (new compress -> old extract in DOSBox, and vice versa)
• Phase 3+: dedup correctness, cross-archive block sharing
• Phase 5: encryption round-trip, key derivation vectors
• Phase 9: ZK proof soundness and completeness