Re: [Gimp-print-devel] What direction should we be headed?

[Michael S. <mi...@ea...>]

Thorsten Schnier wrote:
> ...
> had lots of APIs where they simply could plug in, linux (and unix in
> general) doesn't have anything like that. Of course there is the
> danger of binary-only releases of drivers; if e.g. Epson had been
> able to produce such a thing, they might not have seen the need to
> release printer documentation. But even if they wanted to produce an
> open-source driver, the only way might have been a ghostscript
> driver.

Well, that's one of the things we're talking with EPSON about in
regards to CUPS; basically, CUPS provides all of the things they
need to develop a Linux/UNIX driver, and allows them the option of
a (free) open-source driver license or a (pay) binary license
which then goes to fund CUPS development...

FWIW, none of the printer manufacturers I talk to are willing to
open source drivers for their entry-level printers; they talk of
"giving away secrets to their competitors", while we have to
shake our heads and say "it isn't so!" since we've seen it all
and *know* it wouldn't make a difference...

> ...
> Cisco Enterprise Print System:
>  A set of tools for making the adminstration and support of large
>  number of printers dramatically easier

But still based on LPD; they've volunteered to port a lot of their
stuff to CUPS since it supports IPP and other network stuff they
like.

> Open Source Printing:
>   VA and HP are driving a partnership with the Open Source
>   community to create great Open Source printing

for PostScript laser printers from HP, although the group that is
developing PPD-based filters (using the CUPS code, BTW) is also
trying to support other vendors' PostScript printers, too...

> Application Print Services Library:
>   This project, driven by Corel, provides a unified API for accessing
>   printing-specific services outside the realm of the graphics API.
>   This includes querying & controlling features of a given printer
>   model, sending jobs, accessing queues and configuration.

This is an attempt at supporting multiple printing systems, and using
the features available in all of them.  Some of the comments I've
heard indicate that the API is not as easy to use as some would
like...

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products                  mi...@ea...
Printing Software for UNIX                       http://www.easysw.com