Re: Developement of a new postcript converter.

[Torsten Landschoff <torsten@debian.org>]

Hi, 

Note: You Cc'ed Macro Pistore, probably because he is mentioned as the
maintainer in the gs-packages you use. Marco gave away maintenance of
Ghostscript - I am the current maintainer of those packages.

On Wed, Feb 02, 2000 at 03:01:44PM +0100, LOUIS-SIDNEY Rodolphe wrote:

> I send this email first to gnu@gnu.org  January 31. (old subject : To
> rewrite Ghostscript ? )

GNU did not write Ghostscript. Better write to Aladdin for such questions.

> For me there is a lack of driver for the printer. We have good software,
> good graphical interface but you can't print your job on the new printer and
> the constructor don't give you any documentation to program it. I am not as
> rich i want to buy a postscript printer.  Ghostscript is a good program it
> have lacuna. It 's difficult to upgrade it for a new printer although you
> have the uniprint driver (.upp). 

What lacking here is the support from the printer manufacturers. Having the
specs for the printer you can assume that a driver will be available soon.
I would write such a driver if provided with the printer and its spec.

> An idea is to write the same thing like ghostscript but with modules you
> can't easily add like driver in the linux kernel.  ( It look the GDI of
> windows and you add the driver ...). Linux becomes a standard and I thing
> it's important to make good impression.

Why reinvent the wheel? Ghostscript is there and it is free software. It is 
our strength to use what is available and extend it as we see fit. No need
to write a new program.

> There is lot of advantages to do this : 
>  
> -You can add a lot of drivers without the needs of recompiling all.

Well then, implement a dynamic loading facility for Ghostscript.

> -The manufacturer can write the driver for the new printer if they don't
> want to give us documentation.

Great. This means we are still unable to use all the features the printer
provides if the manufacturer decides not to implement it in the driver.

> - Unix user will be happy to make word processing ... presentation ... 
> I'am very frustate to use windows for printing in high quality. (I have a
> deskjet 880C).

Please write to HP asking for the specs. Surely someone would want to write
the code. I would do it if I had such a printer.

> My question is how can i do to initiate the project ?  I am not a real
> computer scientist, i don't have the knowledge to perform good structure of
> programming. But i can't do many language ( C,C++ ...) and i am a volunteer
> to write code. Where can I find some volonteers who are experts in printer
> and have good view to make a good structure of this advanced ghostscript ? (
> I have some ideas to ,  are they good an optimum for further upgrade ?).

Well, I would suggest to look around on the free software market for similar
projects. Then contact the people who fit in here. Currently I know of the 
following projects regarding printing:

- CUPS: Common Unix Printer System (www.cups.org, has a modified ghostscript)
- APS: Application Printing Services API (see opensource.corel.com)
- gnome-print(?): GNOME is also working on a print architecture. I bet KDE
  is doing something as well. Look at the respective homepages (www.gnome.org, 
  www.kde.org)

Further projects might be found using http://freshmeat.net/appindex, linux.com
or sourceforge.net.

I am the Debian maintainer of Ghostscript and I plan to do something in that
direction for the Debian package. I think the drivers should be loaded as
dynamic objects at runtime and the compilation should support just plugging
in a Driver and only compiling that module.

I would like to elaborate but I don't have the time before Feb 15th. Sorry.

Please keep me informed on your results.

Thanks

    Torsten

-- 
Torsten Landschoff           Bluehorn@IRC               <torsten@debian.org>
           Debian Developer and Quality Assurance Committee Member