Fast personal printing _without_ CUPS

[Polytropon]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:39:17 -0400, Jerry wrote:
> On Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:52:49 +0200
> Polytropon articulated:
> 
> > There isn't much you can invent on a hammer. :-)
> 
> Absolutely true. However, as Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "It is
> tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as
> if it were a nail."

Heh, I also thought about that saying after sending
the message. Maybe a bad example. :-)



> This sort of tunnel vision, at least in my opinion, has infected the
> *BSD community in general. They look at a problem and then, rather than
> finding a solution, find someone to blame. My my late father was so
> fond of saying when someone complained, "It's better to light a candle
> than curse the darkness."

It's always a consideration of "what to invest" versus
"what to get out of the deal", considering risks and
options. And often politics.

Just imagine a "thing" like FreeBSD would implement
a means to simply use "Windows" printer drivers. And
then MICROS~1 starts suing, both FreeBSD and its
users (!!!) for "illegally using" something.

Sounds stupid and contraproductive?

It is - but things like this seem to be common. You
surely know that MICROS~1 has more revenue from its
competitor HTC than from their own mobile phone
platform? The idea: "You know, maybe we have some
patents, but we won't tell you which they are, even
in a court trial we won't, but maybe we have some.
And if you don't pay $5 per unit sold, then...
maybe... we'll sue you and all your customers."
The "fee" has been raised to $15 some time later.
(If I understood the process correctly - I'm not
much interested in this mobile stuff and all the
ugly politics involved because this has nothing to
do with a free market.)

There needs to be some security both for developers
and for users. Current market politics don't seem
to provide them.

On the other hand, implementing drivers for "simple
printers" (typical inkpee products) is easy when you
know the control codes to make the paper and the
printing head move. Reverse-engineering such stuff
isn't that easy, sadly. The question is: Are the
manufacturers willing to publish those little details?
Do they see that as "too costly"?

This is the opposite approach to making a "Windows"-like
driver interface in UNIX / Linux to use the currently
(and on the long run, partially) working drivers. But
see my concerns regarding politics & blackmail.



By the way, I'm also a fan of "lighting the candle".
After all, it's a consideration of how you value your
time, if you see it worth investing in getting something
to work, learn important things (for your IT career),
or if you feel you should return something to the
community that provides you a powerful OS for free.
There are many ways you can "light the candle",
it's up to you _how_ you do it. Anyway, everything
is better than staying in darkness and stumbling
into a pile of garbage. :-)




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...