[CentOS] Fwd: Response from Canon - MultiPASS (KMM7153196V60774L0KM)

> That's an interesting point, but it's sad, too, because it makes Linux 
> the limping straggler following behind the great M$ iron horse 
> Window$.  Or is there an alternative for Linux that does print 
> photo-quality photo images?
>
> Would it be so difficult to send the source to the major distributors 
> (RH, SUSE, to name two) so they could include quality printer support 
> in the distros?  (Yeah, I know, more work for the distro developers, 
> but that IS the business they're in....)

if its open source, the kernel driverss at least need to be adopted by 
the kernel group.   RH at least, has gone on record as saying they don't 
want to introduce non-kernel-standard drivers any more, and I can't say 
I blame them.    Its almost impossible for 3rd party hardware vendors to 
support proprietary drivers anymore without making the end user compile 
them for each kernel rev (and each kernel microrev update breaks said 
drivers until they are reinstalled).


I don't know if Linux has standard APIs for controlling fax modems and 
page scanners (I only use Unix and Linux as servers, not as a desktop 
environment).  Certainly, these sorts of things never existed in the 
conventional POSIX view of the world.   If it does, then the desktop 
application for copying/faxing/etc would be relatively hardware 
independent and could be a seperate generic opensource project....   
OTOH, this sort of approach tends to reduce all hardware to lowest 
common denominator functionality.