Re: [Gimp-print-devel] Brother MFC-J6720DW

[Zdenek D. <zd...@re...>]

On 9/6/22 20:05, gene heskett wrote:
> That is a much more agreeable procedure and attitude in this camp. A 
> breath of fresh air. Mike wants to do away with ppd's and that is not 
> going to be acceptable as long as there are folks who /will/ spend the 
> sheckles to get
> the features or performance they want/need.

Well, what I said is basically interpretation of what Mike says - in 
case you need further functionality, write/use a printer application 
(basically future term for printer driver :) ) - there is even a legacy 
printer application which accepts filters and PPDs once you upload them 
into it. It seems you've misunderstood the change - PPD support are 
going away from CUPS, but not from OS - they move to printer 
applications (which are already written for existing driver packages in 
Ubuntu), so you still can use old PPD on Linux. The printer application 
translates all the PPD stuff into IPP and CUPS automatically picks it up 
via mDNS on localhost (it is not shared on public IP, only on your 
localhost address). This way PPD support in Linux stays, CUPS doesn't 
have to check every change it does whether it works with PPDs and do the 
option transformation from PPD to IPP and vice versa and can focus on 
implementing newer IPP features meant for enterprises and better user 
experience.

Any new model support should be written as a native printer application 
instead of classic PPD though, since the current printer application are 
meant for retrospective support (models with PPDs for Linux to keep 
working with PPDs). Gutenprint here will be the first one with native 
printer application so far :)

>
> Doing away with ppd's is a bad idea. I didn't put $750 on my card half 
> a decade ago to have it treated
> like a $40 Kodak special that WalMart or Target might sell to starving 
> students who think Windoze is
> the bees knees. In that event, I hope some enterprising developer 
> forks it, and calls it bups for Better Unix
> Printing System. If I was 50 years younger, it might even be me, but 
> I've enough irons in the fire  now
> to keep me out of the bars till I miss roll call. That depends on the 
> battery in my pacemaker, and the
> replacement TAVR valve in my heart. My next b-day shortly will be the 
> 88th. I still write code today,
> but its now its bash scripts and g-code  for cnc machinery I've made 
> from manual machines. Or 3d printers.
>
> Thank you very much, Zdenek Dohnal. I have no clue where you hail 
> from, nor is it likely I can I properly
> pronounce your name. NBD, folks can't spell mine either. Shrug.
To keep it simple, I'm trying to help Mike with CUPS and maintain 
gutenprint on Fedora.
>
> Take care and stay well.
>
> Cheers, Gene Heskett.

-- 
Zdenek Dohnal
Software Engineer
Red Hat, BRQ-TPBC