[Gnome-print] X-print?

[Christian Schaller <Uraeus linuxpower org>]

Hi OpenOffice printing hackers,
I am just wondering why StarOffice aims at using xprint (whatever that 
is) from reading through the archive, since it seems that it will 
provide simple Postscript output only. 
Considering that Sun has proclaimed that OpenOffice will be made part of 
GNOME I am having big trouble seeing why the excelent gnome-print 
library isn't used instead. The advantages should be numerous.

I saw a mail in the archive from Martin Maher saying something along the 
lines of GNOME-print probably being a less generic than xprint.  I am 
having problems seeing the problem here. True enough GNOME print might 
not run on obscure Unix variants without futher porting, but the number 
of users to who StarOffice becomes  unintersting due to it having a very 
limited printing system I would guess is much bigger, than the number 
who can't print straight away because they are using Siemens Unix or 
something. or similar (would OpenOffice itself compile?)

My take is that if the printing people at Sun worked togheter with the 
GNOME-print developers we would get both high-quality printing in 
OpenOffice and a fantastic printing system for Unix sooner.  GNOME print 
already provides both Postscript and PDF output and PCL is as I 
understand being worked on. There is also work underway AFAIK to 
integrate the printer drivers IBM makes for Linux.

So my suggestion is that this list is simply killed of and the Sun 
developers here move onto the GNOME print 
list:(http://lists.helixcode.com/mailman/listinfo/gnome-print). On this 
list there are already people from Hewlet-Packard, VA Research and IBM 
in addition to the GNOME hackers so I think it has every potential of 
bringing us a professional printing solution much sooner than Sun 
implementing something of its own, which I feel has been the attitude 
offered by the Sun hackers on this list.

This way myself and other users get an better Office Suite, and a 
printing system for Unix that truly can compare to the ones enjoyed by 
Windows and Mac users.

Also from the archive I saw Chema Celorio(the GNOME print maintainer) 
offer to help you out implementing this so the technical barrier should 
be easy to overcome.

Well, this is my opinion anyways :)

Sincerely,
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller