From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=to:from:subject:message-id:date:user-agent:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=W2v1PuQXg/iBwsA4TG3RtSW1RtQOuZkMMGROFT2mtfU=; b=adbKik50yt0kLw+a+4aE0KbV0QOv/pqsjeJDiYuslFGVift2kJhouzkcRcju7SEKUh 3WUjkmJDT1RBmuP+GCd36VH1KDrmOQx3Y8HvUwqN58nOluW7OMiCkvPYVp3bT3iUlNpA ds1+jYacsuh2PfjrvST0/IIKKDp1sHbNEwFA+jUAzXO3vJVevIKzBfHQkReoItE9Nye1 SsvBgFkMz/ROwPbvOvm75uAA6fg2rwME+JGlOwXNKBaPJ73Aeq/PjOPYDNMjnAoYiMlo EmB4h9oIIMDjjsvbOGMgpHk47aDm2R9kDX1Lb+gtswoJJfLKSeHKAgNS6dZjoHgE/qvX KX+A== From: Till Kamppeter Message-ID: <56B2760D.3020800@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2016 19:50:05 -0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Printing-architecture] Debian dropping the Linux Standard Base - Better way to supply distribution-independent printer driver packages? List-Id: Printing architecture under linux List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Open Printing Hi, after looking through participants and achievements of the first OpenPrinting Summit in spring 2006 in Atlanta I got in contact with Mats Wichmann about the LSB and ended up googling and found this one: https://lwn.net/Articles/658809/ An article at LWN about Debian having decided to quit the LSB. The LSB was created to allow software vendors to make distribution-independent binary software packages, based on the resources which the distributions have in common. It got a huge, awkward collection of libraries, functions, commands, and interfaces about which the upstream developers of the LSB have found out that the major Linux distributions for corporate users provide them and there are actually very few software vendors actually making use of it, leading to the fact that no one actually wants to invest time in the LSB. Several years ago I was seeing an opportunity in the LSB to make distribution-independent binary driver packages and I wrote up design guidelines and packaging instructions for manufacturers, created a mechanism for looking up such packages by querying the printer's IEEE-1284 device ID on the OpenPrinting database and automatically downloading and installing the packages with system-config-printer. All this I also presented on several OpenPrinting Summits and Epson actually put up such packages, but no one else. OpenPrinting (and Epson) got one of the few users of the LSB that way. The dropping of the LSB by Debian was leading to the auto-download of LSB-based packages to break in Ubuntu (which syncs the LSB packages of Debian): https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lsb/+bug/1536353 IPP Everywhere will soon be formally approved by the PWG (Printing Working Group) and so we will have an open standard for driver-less printing, but this does not necessarily mean that in a few months all printers sold are IPP-Everywhere printers and there are still lots of legacy printers. So printer drivers are still needed and therefore we need a way to package and distribute them, ideally so that they work correctly on all currently available Linux distributions. It would be great if one could do so without needing the awkward ballast of the LSB. What about static or semi-static linking? Restricting interfaces as much as possible, only allowing CUPS-Raster-based rasterto... filters for raster-based printing, allowing backends for awkward communication protocols, allowing PostScript, PCL, PDF only with the filters of the cups-filters package, ... Working without the LSB could perhaps also simplify things and make more manufacturers doing distribution-independent packages. Should we discuss possibilities here on the list? Or on the Summit? Till