On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 05:45:54AM -0400, Menelaos Maglis wrote:
> > Can't ask users about such
> tradeoffs, they will be annoyed and won't be able to answer. These days you
> can ask the printer via d-bus. The printer knows more about itself than its
> users know about it.
>
> D-Bus is used for communication between processes. So the configuration and operation of a printer is split between several different components, which use D-Bus to communicate with each other.
>
> I question this architecture. Why should an application need a system bus to pass messages between its own components? CUPS is not using D-Bus and is able to print to other printers; only HPLIP uses D-bus, so far as I am aware. Why not keep using the same method/interfaces that are proven for decades? What is the benefit? How are printers from other manufacturers supported?

You should complain with the developers of hplip. The madness about
using heavy frameworks for IPC seems contagious. For some reason,
nobody can write a program that uses standard text interfaces any
more.

>
> Above architecture /may/ be beneficial to a number of use cases. E.g. interactive desktop users that want also a simple GUI tool in an integrated desktop environment. Imposing a hard dependency on an additional component (D-Bus) may not server other use cases well or at all if they cannot use D-Bus.
>
> So I am left with below choices:
>
> * Accept no printing
> * Accept HPLIP+D-Bus if possible
> * Fork and change HPLIP or develop something new to do the job, if I have the abilities/motivation.
>
> At least this is an option in free software world.

The problem is that a huge fraction of Linux vendors still believe
that "This is the year of Linux on desktops" (something we have been
told since around 2005, I guess). Or they simply decide to cover up
poor architecture designs by false promises.

The result is that we are losing most of the original simplicity of
Linux (effectively fucking up the only users who care about Linux),
just to serve users that will never use Linux on their desktops
anyway.

HND

KatolaZ

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