Re: [gnome-print] [Fwd: Desktop ain't no desktop without prettyprinting] printing]

[Lauris Kaplinski <lauris ximian com>]

Hello!

On Tue, 2002-02-12 at 17:13, ming deng wrote:
> Just starting from Windows, Microsoft had been able to understand the
> vision of modern printing system. It has been come out to be such a
> revolution from the point, Unix had its lpr and MSDOS has its own
> spooler.

Just a little ranting:
Wasn't it Microsoft, who designed Windows
font API initially such, that it had EXACTLY 4 style slots (roman,
italic, bold, bold-italic) for each font, so Adobe had to implement
its own font handling code to overcome that?
So yes, it probably has understood modern printing needs, but
via some horrible trial-and-error method...

> Though Open Source has introduced some much up-to-date technology into
> Linux and its printing, the core part(engine, ie. postscript and lpr) 
> of Linux printing is still like 20 year ago. Does everyone agree that 
> plain old design will give us power to compete with MS and bring us to
> the future. I really doubt it. So is the old plain Linux OS structure 
> design.

Yeah,
the unfortunate thing and great blocker is, that printing is halfway 
sysadmin level task. And all such things tend to evolve very-very
slowly under linux. Gnome and gnome and gnome-print is not the place,
where to target such levels, the most we can do is support existing
spooling systems provided by distribution, however dumb they can be...

> We need revolution here. Don't assume the fundmentals above that we
> are working on can scale forever. With so many new techs, we can easily
> design a new Linux OS and a really beautiful printing, rather than 
> patch endlessly on a old engine. Open Source does not mean we have to 
> stick to old framework.

IMHO the revolution is going (CUPS etc.), but it takes time, unti it
reaches to most desktops, so gnome-print level libraries can rely on
it. Gnome has to run on production systems (including commercial
unices like Solaris and HP-UX) where we simply cannot force people to
install arbitrary administrative-level things.

> Sorry for saying so much negative to Linux and its printing. But if I
> were a MS guy, I'd  rather Linux society staying at sort of stone era.

I agree - the situation is not good, but it IS improving slowly.


Best wishes,
Lauris Kaplinski