From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 27 19:11:34 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9AF0106564A for ; Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:11:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 805E08FC08 for ; Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:11:34 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-104-16.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.104.16]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18D7A3CEB9 for ; Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id p9RJBWet006421 for ; Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:11:32 +0200 From: Polytropon To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20111027211132.78d4d1e4.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20111027133905.34315b83@scorpio> References: <15996.1319704110@tristatelogic.com> <1319712142.89939.YahooMailNeo@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20111027172944.75a96733.freebsd@edvax.de> <4EA989C2.6060909@infracaninophile.co.uk> <20111027133905.34315b83@scorpio> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:11:35 -0000 On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:39:05 -0400, Jerry wrote: > Printing under MS Windows is a breeze. > The *nix community has never > gotten printing up to that lever. It _had_, past tense. :-) > While there are those who continually > blame the "manufacturers", the truth is that any COO, CFO {or any other > alphabetic combination that you like} that seriously proposed the > creation of a department dedicated to the writing of drivers for > non-windows based systems, a department that would therefore have a zero > based projected cash flow, would be removed from office posthaste. Fully agree, but if established standards would have been truly adopted by the manufactueres for their products, there would be no need to develop any drivers. One standard interface could address all printer functionality, and maybe even more, such as scanning or faxing functionalities quite common in the "egg-laying wool-milk-sows" we see on the consumer markets. Sadly, "the one standard" doesn't seem to exist, and manufacturers are not willing to discuss one. Of course, such a standard would have to be free and open, so any OS could implement it. There's a reason for that: Companies that develop printers want money. They need to continuously sell printers, and there's an ongoing "renewal" of hardware and software, e. g. new printer requires new OS, new OS requires new printer. This is done by planned obsolescense. Just imagine you had a printer that would work with any OS. First of all, you wouldn't buy a "Windows", so the deal between the manufacturer and MICROS~1 would break: "We make our devices for your 'Windows', you tell us about your interfaces, and we make a driver for your current product." You would be able to use your printer with a free OS. Furthermore, if this free OS got updated, you would continue using your printer because the new OS would also support it, unlike "Windows" that would not have support for the printer anymore, encouraging you to buy a new one. On the other hand, this business model benefits the development of new technology (financed by unit sales), and making technology cheaper to purchase. Downside here again: The cheaper printers become, the more paper is wasted for printing. Yes, I know the "paperless office" is a pure utopia, but I've seen things... scary things... Example: In a company I know emailing is quite new. When office A wants to send a document to office B per email, A prints the email message and faxes it to B, where it also gets printed (inkpee and laser faxes). After that, B checks for new messages and then prints the message he received. > Even the few companies that do write a limited set of drivers for the > exceedingly fragmented *.nix community tend to stick with vanilla Linux > and perhaps Debian. It took nVidia years (literally) to get FreeBSD to > update their product to the point when nVidia could supply 64 bit > drivers. Right, it simply doesn't pay in the first place to support that fragmented... can I say "target point"? It's more like a whole forrest of targets that's changing very often. :-) Really, I agree that the same business logic applies in driver support. As the success of free systems is not measured by unit sales, there is no such thing as "market share" for them. But market share decides about what manufacturers pay attention to. In the past, they were forced to support certain standards in order to get their devices sold. A printer that could not be addressed by standard Epson codes just wouldn't sell. Later on, PS was the only thing you could sell a printer. (The same applied to graphics cards which needed to support standardized command sets in order to work properly.) Today, this is not important anymore as individual drivers for specific "Windows" versions are the key to unit sales. This is of course a short-term decision, but finally most three-letter-superiors decide by quarterly numbers. This _may_ turn out to be contraproductive in the end. The "decision makers" just hope to have moved to a different position when this happens where they get a better wage for less responsibility. :-) > I recently spoke with a representative from Brothers regarding > securing a driver for one of their laser printers. He himself is a > Linux man and said that he felt my pain. He also informed me that while > it had been discussed from time to time, it was always felt that it > would be a lose-lose situation. They do supply drivers for Linux and > Debian but that is about it. He stated that it was felt that the cost > of writing drivers for a widely fragmented community and then having to > support said drivers would just not be financially feasible. Interesting. I always thought CUPS (which is common across the many Linusi, as well as standard in Mac OS X) would have a PPD plugin (or was it the Foomatic stuff? I can't properly tell...) that allows printer manufacturers to write drivers according to that documented interface, so there's no need to code hardare- or OS-specific things anymore, which, as you will surely agree, sounds ridiculously old-fashioned. Sorry, it _is_ like that. Direct control to hardware is so obsolete in a world where everyone is keen on using abstraction layers of libraries of interfaces of abstraction. So why not use that in the first place? Oh, again we arrive at the point where conforming to standards is bad for business... > Printing has come a long way from the "parallel port" configuration. > Many now use wireless connections for instance. I love wireless > printers myself. When you want to get rid of cabling, they are big help. However, there are settings where the use of any non-cabled hardware is prohibited due to security reasons. But this surely does not apply in home settings where security is traditionally regarded a no-topic. I have a wireless adapter for parallel, USB and networked printing myself, still it's not in use due to security reasons. :-) > However, here again problems arise. FreeBSD supplies > virtually no "N" protocol certified drivers which negates the > effectiveness of an "N" protocol based wireless printer. Yes, this problem exists. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...