Re: [Printing-architecture] Notes of today's telecon

[Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter@gmx.net>]

Here is the link to Giuseppe Ghibò's posting on dektop_printing which
was mentioned on the call:

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_printing/2006/000744.html

It is mostly about following issues of hardware and their manufacturers:

- Linux/free software drivers for Hardware models appear only late after
  the model appears on the market. Often the model is already
  discontinued when the driver appears.

- Firmware is not built in any more into the hardware (on an EEPROM) but
  has to be uploaded every time one turns the device on. This requires
  to have a piece of proprietary software (the firmware file) on the PC
  and so the device cannot run out-of-the-box with free downloadable
  distros.

   Till





Till Kamppeter wrote:
> Oi,
> 
> here are some notes of what we talked about and what we agreed on today.
> 
> 
> Participants
> ------------
> 
> (I hope I did not forget someone)
> 
> Ira McDonald
> Glen Petrie
> Norm Jacobs
> Wendy Philips
> Claudia Alimpich
> Ian Murdock
> Till Kamppeter
> 
> 
> Directory structure
> -------------------
> 
> In principle we agreed on what we had worked out last week, but there
> are following additional points:
> 
> - PPDs should be in directories with language tags, multi-language PPDs
> in a special one, preferrably named "mul":
> 
> /usr/share/ppd/<supplier>/en/
> /usr/share/ppd/<supplier>/fr/
> /usr/share/ppd/<supplier>/mul/
> ...
> 
> - Actual printing systems (like CUPS) should access the files via
> symbolic links, if possible one link for the whole directory, supplied
> by the distro's package of the printing system. For the PPDs for example
> CUPS would only need one link:
> 
> ln -s /usr/share/ppd /usr/share/cups/model/vendor-ppds
> 
> Individual links only if really needed.
> 
> Remark (we did not mention this on the call): Reference to driver in the
> PPD (for example in "*cupsFilter" line) can have absolute path, so one
> would not necessarily need the driver to reside in /usr/lib/cups/filter/.
> 
> 
> linuxprinting.org as central resource
> -------------------------------------
> 
> - Not all printer manufacturers are comfortable with uploading their
> drivers/PPDs to a central, external place like linuxprinting.org. To
> still have linuxprinting.org being a central place to which you supply
> make and model info from the device ID and getting returned a working
> driver, we would accept nachine-readable links from the manufacturers
> suppliers, so that a printer setup tool could automatically download the
> driver. We will not accept links to interactive download dialogs like
> 'go to www.fooprinters.com and then click "Drivers" and choose your model'.
> 
> - linuxprinting.org is moving to FSG. I will soon get a root server
> there and then start the activities to move it over. Then
> OpenPrinting.org and linuxprinting.org activities can get more closely
> together or we even join.
> 
> 
> LSB Face to Face next week
> --------------------------
> 
> We must work out here on the list what I will present next week. What to
> suggest for LSB 3.2, what for 4.0. Slides need to be created.
> 
> - For 4.0 we should try to get a complete picture of FSG OpenPrinting
> standards: PAPI, JTAPI, OPVP, PCM, SM, ...
> 
> - For 3.2 the most important are the directories we have agreed on.
> Should we also require existing CUPS (1.1.x, 1.2.x?) and GhostScript
> (with "cups", "ijs', "opvp" devices) infrastructure? Should we already
> suggest PAPI?
> 
> We agreed on starting the discussionhere on printing-architecture and
> then when we have put something together to cross-post it onto
> desktop_printing.
> 
> Last-minute updates I can take up to the evening of May 31, Boston time.
> 
> 
> Next printing-architecture phone meeting
> ----------------------------------------
> 
> There is no meeting on May 31.
> 
>    Till
> 
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