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

[Michael Schreckenbauer]

Am Dienstag, 6. September 2011, 18:57:25 schrieb 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.

Yes. that's you and...?
All binary distros use cups for printing. I would think, most gentoo users do 
the same. The BSDs, I know of, use cups. MacOS uses it. It works for Windows-
Clients. There are IPP-Servers for Windows. What was your argument again?

> 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?

I get it. You have no idea how software development at such a large scale 
works.

> > 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.

This code needs to be supported and maintained for literally no good reason. 
If you think, that's no work at all, just volunteer for the task.

> 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.

No, it's not, unless you are willing to do the additional work.

Michael