Re: [gentoo-user] Re: What is up with the libreoffice ebuild?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Canek.

On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 02:22:44PM -0400, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:55 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@×××.de> wrote:

> >> > However, I use lprng, not cups.  It's good that we have a choice over
> >> > what software we use, isn't it?  ;-(

> >> It could be that IPP is just becoming the preferred protocol, and other
> >> print queue managing protocols are going the way of Gopher.

> > Preferred by whom?  Firefox, for example, manages lprng just fine.  It's
> > really not a big deal supporting an extra spooler interface, particularly
> > a simple one.

> Because, as "simple" as it could be, it's another one. Big projects
> need to support CUPS, because they need to work for everyone (or as
> many as possible). It makes no sense *at all* to support more printing
> systems.

It enables more people to use it.

The support for lpr exists.  It's being removed, for some reason.  Given
that printing works by constructing a postscript equivalent of the thing
being printed, just how difficult can it be to squirt this postscript
down lpr rather than the cups equivalent?  How long does it take to write
a C++ `if' statement?

> And again, it's Open Source. If there is enough demand, someone will
> write support for other printing systems. Just don't assume that any
> project (being LibreOffice or Gentoo) need to support your choices
> besides the most used one.

Again the code already exists, it's merely a matter of not destroying it.
I became a user based on it supporting a standard printing system, and
it's perfectly reasonable for me to expect that support to continue.

> Regards.
> --
> Canek Peláez Valdés
> Posgrado en Ciencia e Ingeniería de la Computación
> Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).