CUPS browsing and other Linux features to be dropped by Apple.

[GreyGeek]

http://www.unixmen.com/201202-apple-...urce-printing/

Have you ever administered your CUPS installation by entering "localhost:631: into your browser's URL? Well, Apple is dropping that feature from CUPS, along with some CUPS filters.

When lead developers on the project, Tim Waugh, let the cat out that newer versions of this printing project, starting with CUPS 1.6, would become an exclusive Mac OS features, leaving out Linux-features maintenance to other project – Linux-platform feature, orphaned by Apple’s ambitious Internet Printing Protocol-Everywhere will now be maintained by OpenPrinting Project as a separate project.
.....
Though, further maintenance will be handled by OpenPrinting project independently it will not essentially be fork. While Apple’s attempt to install a new printer standard, with driver-less printers but imaging it a way forward, but at the cost of established Cups mechanism is definitely self-defeating.

Linux users are truly rankled at losing a very important printing feature, which they will now have to work by using Avahi; though suggestions of using other, less popular, printing ecosystems such as gimp-print, Foomatic, are yet to garner greater support.

Even though you may install an HP printer, for example, using their printer driver, such drivers inevitably call CUPS.

I don't know how CUPS printing will finally work out, but I doubt we will notice the shift.

[SteveRiley]

I so much want to publish this...

Internet Goofiness Correction Force                         S. Riley
Request for comments: 8.5x11                        21 February 2012
Category: Non-negotiable


                  Printing Is No Longer Supported

Abstract

   Laser printers are the scourge of the earth. Therefore, printing
   is no longer supported by any electrical, mechanical, pneumatic,
   hydraulic, or biologic computational equipment. Furthermore,
   no future technological development may circumvent this
   restriction. It is permanent and irrevocable.

Status of This Memo

   This RFC is an immediate Internet standard. No exceptions
   will be granted and no hardship cases will be allowed to persist.
   Distribution of this memo is mandatory worldwide.

Security Considerations

   Paper rots faster than bits. Bits are therefore more secure.

References

   1. "Evaluation of the reasons for bulging recycling bins across
      the world." (Unknown author murdered by the paper industry.)

[GreyGeek]

Interesting RFC.

One of the reasons I bought my HP duplex laser was so that I could print on both sides to save paper. But, I am not much of a printer. The biggest print project I did was last year when I printed the genealogy my wife spent 20 years working on. 257 pages that printed on half as many sheets, times 6.

The 10 ream box of paper (5,000 total sheets) I am pulling from I purchased about 6 years ago.

That said, most of the paper made these days is from wood of trees, about 4 billion per year, planted by tree farms.
But, laser printers account for only a small portion of the paper manufactured each year:

Today, the world consumes about 300 million tons of paper each year. Most of that paper is made from virgin pulp, but recycled paper accounts for 38 percent of the world’s total fiber supply and non-wood fibers from plants like hemp or kenaf make up 7 percent. The U.S., which contains only 5 percent of the world’s population, uses 30 percent of all paper. In that country, the forest and paper products industry generates $200 billion dollars in sales every year, accounting for 7 percent of the total manufacturing output of the United States. About 28 percent of all wood cut in the U.S. is used for papermaking.
...

Take a minute to look around the room you’re in and notice how many things are made out of paper. There may be books, a few magazines, some printer paper, and perhaps a poster on the wall. Yet, if you consider that each person in the United States uses 749 pounds (340kg) of paper every year (adding up to a whopping 187 billion pounds (85 billion kg) per year for the entire population, by far the largest per capita consumption rate of paper for any country in the world), then you realize that paper comes in many more forms than meets the eye.

World consumption of paper has grown 400 percent in the last 40 years. Now nearly 4 billion trees or 35 percent of the total trees cut around the world are used in paper industries on every continent. Besides what you can see around you, paper comes in many forms from tissue paper to cardboard packaging to stereo speakers to electrical plugs to home insulation to the sole inserts in your tennis shoes. In short, paper is everywhere.

Cardboard boxes and other packaging materials consume a large part of the paper made every year.

In the long run, I'd rather have a material that recycles normally with the aid of common microorganisms than having thousands of square miles of plastic detritus floating around in the oceans, harming sea life.

[SteveRiley]

Interesting RFC.

You realize I totally made that up, right?

Check out the RFC number.

[GreyGeek]

You realize I totally made that up, right?

Check out the RFC number.

Duh! I may be 70 but I am not fully Alzheimer's ... yet!

I saw that 8x11 and immediately recognized it as a banner for wireless activity. In fact I thought the whole "RFC" was pretty clever. What I didn't know is that you made it up.

BTW, just to further forestall the inability to detect humor I ordered 500g of Piracetam and 500g of Choline yesterday. I'm not going down without a fight! :mad:

[SteveRiley]

I saw that 8x11 and immediately recognized it as a banner for wireless activity. In fact I thought the whole "RFC" was pretty clever.

Wha...wireless? Oh wait, I totally screwed up the humor! I meant to type "8.5x11". I fixed it

BTW, just to further forestall the inability to detect humor I ordered 500g of Piracetam and 500g of Choline yesterday. I'm not going down without a fight! :mad:

I've never had good luck with that combo...too many headaches

[SecretCode]

I so much want to publish this...

Internet Goofiness Correction Force                         S. Riley
Request for comments: 8.5x11                        21 February 2012
Category: Non-negotiable


                  Printing Is No Longer Supported

Abstract

   Laser printers are the scourge of the earth. Therefore, printing
   is no longer supported by any electrical, mechanical, pneumatic,
   hydraulic, or biologic computational equipment. Furthermore,
   no future technological development may circumvent this
   restriction. It is permanent and irrevocable.

Status of This Memo

   This RFC is an immediate Internet standard. No exceptions
   will be granted and no hardship cases will be allowed to persist.
   Distribution of this memo is mandatory worldwide.

Security Considerations

   Paper rots faster than bits. Bits are therefore more secure.

References

   1. "Evaluation of the reasons for bulging recycling bins across
      the world." (Unknown author murdered by the paper industry.)

I'm going to print that out and ... oh, wait ...

[SteveRiley]

Don't do it! You'll rip a hole in the great forest-timber-pulp-paper continuum-complex!

[GreyGeek]

Wha...wireless? Oh wait, I totally screwed up the humor! I meant to type "8.5x11". I fixed it


I've never had good luck with that combo...too many headaches

Ah, now THAT 8.5 changes everything and adds to the humor.

Wow, I'm impressed with the fact that you picked up on the "headache" problem. Just how broad is your pharmacology knowledge, eh?

[SteveRiley]

Just how broad is your pharmacology knowledge, eh?

Hm. As I examine the list of possible options of answers to your question, I am unable to select a response that is simultaneously benign and interesting (or "safe and effective," lol). Therefore I shall decline.