Debug Brother MFC-9560CDW failure to print

[Robert Bonomi]

Da Rock <freebsd-questions at herveybayaustralia.com.au> wrote:
> On 02/08/12 17:24, Robert Bonomi wrote:
> >>
> >> On 02/08/12 03:33, Jerry wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:57:26 +1000
> >>> Da Rock articulated:
> >>>
> >>>> Just noticed something: have you specifically got a postscript module
> >>>> in your printer? Because that is what it is sending your printer...
> >>> By the way, the test page printed is the one that is supplied with CUPS.
> >>> Interestingly, it prints its own page but not one feed to it. Go
> >>> figure ...
> >>    From what I see right now, you're printing ps to a non ps printer. So
> >> I'm a little surprised that you get a test page that way.
> >
> > Strange.  When I check the specs for that printer, it says it it has
> > following printer-language support: "PCL6,BR-Script3"
> >
> > "BR-Script3" Is Brother's implementation of PostScript -- thus not having
> > to py Adobe's licensing fees for the "genuine" interpreter.
> >
> Interesting. I haven't heard that before. That said, it would take more 
> than a simple name change to beat off the blood-sucking lawyers... so 
> just how close to postscript is it? And how perfectly does cups 
> interpret it as well?

Lawyers are not a problem -- the PS _language_ *IS* in the public domain.
Anyboy is free to implement their own interpreter.  See -'ghostscript' for
a _very_ well-known example. <grin>

Many "lower-price" printer manufacturers use a 'private' implemention -- the
Adobe License fee is (or at least used to be, a couplee of decades aoo, when
I was dealing with such things) in the hundreds of dollars _per_unit_.

I haven't tested a current Brother implementation.  A couple of decades ago,
their 'PS-level 2" implementation 'just worked' for anything I happened to
throw at it in a production environment.

Some of the 'alternative' implementations actually have -fewer- bugs in them
than the genuine Adobe-licensed code does.  <wry grin>