Re: [Printing-user-general] Support for Riso Kagaku Printer-Duplicators

Stefan Bruens wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have been somewhat successfull working out a specification for the print file
> format of the Riso Kagaku Printer-Duplicators [1].
>

Great.

> Details can be found on my Homepage [2]. As can be seen there, there is no
> driver
> yet. Although I have only used print job files to get the specification (eg. no
> disassembling or the like), I am not sure if it would be a good idea to create
> the driver myself or let someone else do it based on the specification
> (cleanroom approach). This is also the reason I have not uploaded the source
> code for the parser yet, as there _may_ be some IPRs of Riso involved (but
> unlikely).

As long as you did not disassemble any code from Riso all what you did
is completely legal. So you can go ahead and write a driver based on the
information you obtained and publish it as free software. Then I will
list it on the linuxprinting.org web site.

DO NOT write a driver which has to be compiled into GhostScript, as this
is a nightmare for maintainers and users. Use the driver plug-in
interfaces available in the current ESP GhostScript. They allow easy
installation of printer drivers and their presence in distributions will
be required from LSB 3.2 on.

If you driver does not send pure bitmaps to the printer but also vector
graphics, you have to use the FSG OpenPrinting interface, as it is the
only standardized vector driver interface. More about this interface you
find if you follow the links under "Implementation(s)" on

http://www.freestandards.org/en/OpenPrinting/APAC#Implementation.28s.29

especially this one

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_printing/2006/000713.html

If your driver sends pure bitmaps to the printer, you can also use
OpenPrinting vector interface, as it contains also raster functionality,
but you can also use CUPS raster (see www.cups.org, especially also the
CUPS DDK to generate PPD files) to have a better CUPS integration.

> 
> PS: I have added two of these printers to the printer database, maker
> RisoKagaku
>

One of the two did not have the link to your web page. I have added it.

   Till