From owner-freebsd-chat Sun Oct 17 4:10:45 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mailman.zeta.org.au (mailman.zeta.org.au [203.26.10.16]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 67DC21512F for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 04:10:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from atrn@zeta.org.au) Received: from ska.bsn (beefcake.zeta.org.au [203.26.10.12]) by mailman.zeta.org.au (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA24048 for ; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:13:34 +1000 Received: (from andy@localhost) by ska.bsn (8.9.3/8.9.3) id VAA36211 for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:25:25 +1000 (EST) (envelope-from andy) Message-Id: <199910171125.VAA36211@ska.bsn> Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 21:25:25 +1000 (EST) From: atrn@zeta.org.au Subject: Re: printers (was Re: keyboards) To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <199910170023.TAA16286@nospam.hiwaay.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org David Kelly wrote: > As a result, I don't buy these products. Even for a WinNT application. But at least you should ask the manufacturer if they support Unix so they get the idea there is some demand there. When they say "No." you say "Too bad" and tell why you won't be buying the printer. The companies are sales driven and if people don't ask they'll just assume everyone is happy with the Windows-only support. Eventually if enough people ask someone in sales/marketing will go to development and ask for Unix support. Some of us on the inside try to promote the idea that Unix should be supported but without customers actually asking for this support the powers that be don't listen. One of the big stumbling blocks is the lack of an abstract printing model for applications. Most applications assume Postscript and this is often overkill. People say use Ghostscript but the GPL'd Ghostscript interacts badly with patent and trade secrets which are held dearly by th e companies. Negotiating with Aladdin for a non-GPL'd version has its own problems. The Windows printer support is actually better than the Unix here (even if the GDI graphics model mostly sucks). -- Chuck Berry lied about the promised land To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message