Re: [Printing-user-general] Why has nothing changed?

 
 Hi,

 I think you're right, but I don't agree with some
things. 
 Software quality also means usability, any soft.
enginnering book you tell that! FOSS in general does
not have quality, if you see for this point. Being
stable and secure are also things that make software
have quality, but not just that. Technology is here to
help us do our tasks better and faster. If I need 1
week to make my printer work on Linux, of course
writing it with my own hands or paying someone to
install it will make me complete it faster (or "less
slowly"). On Windows people usually plug and use (and
I'm aware that Windows has more drivers, and that
hardware companies support Windows better, that's not
FOSS fault completely).
 But in the last 5 years things changed a lot. Today
it may be easier to install some Linux distros than it
is to install Windows itself. FOSS audience has
changed too. Developers and project leaders see that,
most of the times, and change or add new goals to
their projects. A lot has to be done, but I see
clearly it is changing. Some of my friends at college
run away from Linux, and they also study CS, they
should not, they should be the people to improve foss
quality.. but kinda shows how many aspects got to be
improved. Last year I was teaching Linux to some of
them, and when I answered a guy on how to add his
soundcard to Linux (look at the modules dir to see if
it's there, use modinfo to confirm, then edit /etc
files) he looked at me with a "yeah, right" face. He
is right.. this isn't quality! Next year I'll finish
college and I think my final year project will be
related to FOSS usability analysis and how it can be
improved.
 Finally, I don't think you're right when you say the
project should be forked, I think goals have to be
reviewed, and if improve software usability doesn't
seem to be challenging, it's for sure needed, it's a
matter of choosing your software intended audience
(knowing that even tech ppl have their troubles with
CUPS). I think it's natural when a free software
project faces this kind of thing, five years ago no
one needed a GUI to partition disk, for instance, now
people need it. But project goals really need to be
reviewed, FOSS probaly won't have more industry
sponsorship if they are targeted only to software
developers and not also regular users. We live in the
real world and software is just means to get some
other things done, if it fails at that, ppl choose
another software/another company.
 But I agree with you, this has to be discussed.

 Lauro C.


------
Roger Morgan wrote:

Two years ago, Eric Raymond posted his experiences
with CUPS:
http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cups-horror.html
in which he points out, with specific examples, that
CUPS is a nightmare to configure.

Today, in 2006, it is obvious to anyone who looks at
the forums that CUPS is *still* a nightmare to
configure. Practically no progress has been made in 2
years.

What needs to change is not just the unusable
documentation and misleading GUI.
What needs to change is some attitudes.

Most people who try to configure CUPS eventually come
to Kurt Pfeifle's page on CUPS Troubleshooting:

http://www.linuxprinting.org/kpfeifle/LinuxKongress2002/Tutorial/VII.cups-help/
VII.cups-help.html

Almost everything on this page is WRONG. I don't mean
technically wrong; I mean that any piece of software
that requires this advice, needs to be junked and
rewritten. Examples:

Example 1:
"Did you make sure you checked the CUPS man pages ?
The most important ones are those for lpadmin, lpr,
lp, lpc, lpq, lpstat, cupsd.conf, lprm . At the end of
most man pages you might be pointed to other man
pages. Go read them too."

My response:
You mean I need to read an unspecified number of 'man'
documents but at least *eight*, IN ADDITION to the
CUPS manual, just to configure a printer? GET OUT!!

Example 2:
"What was the exact command you gave to install it?
Example: lpadmin -p 1st-printer -v
socket://10.160.16.102 -L "Next to my desk" (Won't
work: you used a dash in the printer name and it
doesn't start with a character, which at
present is "illegal" with CUPS; your socket device URL
will most likely not work if you don't give a Port
number; you forgot the "-E" parameter..."

My response:
The response is meaningless as written, which suggests
that nobody has read it seriously in a couple of
years. Yes, I know we all make typos, this post
probably has a few. But mistakes in troubleshooting
advice which make the piece of advice incomprehensible
should be weeded out.

Example 3:
"Switch on the "debug" mode in the LogLevel directive
for your CUPS daemon.
Edit /etc/cups/cupsd.conf (....) Watch what is written
to your CUPS error log"

My response:
Debug mode and a logfile are debugging tools for the
developers. No user should ever need to go near either
of them. The CUPS software should be able to figure
out whether or not bits are getting as far as the
printer. And it should be
able to tell the user which piece of the chain is
missing (if that's what's wrong).

Time to fork the CUPS project?

"what we do in life echoes on eternity"


		
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