There’s separately a /credits page where I’ve done that, linked from the footer. Perhaps I should link it from the apology too. Tell me if you think I’ve not shared what I have to.
If you think I’ve done something wrong according to the licences involved here, please do clarify. I had understood that open-sourcing the Linux stuff (as branches of a fork of v86, linked from the /credits page) met all relevant legal obligations, which I absolutely intend to do.
More broadly, it’s unusual for me not to make everything open, and I do feel bad/conflicted about it. But, unusually, I feel like I have identified a possible route to monetising this, and I think open-sourcing all of it risks making that harder.
Sorry, it's me who needs a reading comprehension lessons. I've read back in printervention website and now again that you didn't open the code that you HAVE to. Because you're apologizing for that, I assumed that you're breaking the license, twice.
After rereading both of your websites again, I should say you've nothing wrong! It's sleepy me who accused you for nothing, sorry.
Linux printing and scanning stack is held on 5 enthusiasts basically, and is quite buggy. Any contributions welcome.
If you want to further improve your project, make it small and fast, you can compile printer filters (most of which work on cups-raster data) with emscripten. This way you don't need to use CUPS, Linux, and x86 emulation. You'll need to write some shims for CUPS libppd functions which many filters use (some don't), and either parse PPD files or convert them into another representation.
Most filters (drivers) are quite simple pipes from stdin to stdout, sometimes they don't use cups functions at all, receiving all the data directly from raster header. Some filters, such as gutenprint, are more complex and use their own backends, but even in this case it's not a hard task: libusb has emscripten WebUSB backend.
If monetization is at odds with open-source, why wouldn't potential customers just wouldn't go to VueScan, as someone posted? I was recently looking at scanners, and saw some brands directly advertise Linux support through this... which means you now have to pay subscription each year to access the expensive hardware you bought.
Thankfully the Avision FB5100 states native Linux support (AFAIK, this is the only flatbed A3 scanner that does), so I'm certainly going to buy this one. I know implementing device support for companies that don't make any effort is hard and thankless, but then we need to divest/invest in the right companies and solutions.
My recent experience shows that eSCL is way behind in terms of functionality. If I want lossless scanning from by Brother scanner, I need the proprietary drivers.
Do you really find you can reliably sustain your full attention that long?
My EV can do 3 – 5 hours on the motorway between charges (depending on weather conditions and speed), but to avoid fatigue I always want a break within 3 hours or so.
And by the time I've parked, gone inside, queued up for and drunk a tea or coffee, used the facilities, and checked the next leg of my trip, that's half an hour and the car is ready to go again.
> parked, gone inside, queued up for and drunk a tea or coffee, used the facilities, and checked the next leg of my trip
You and I have very, very different approaches to driving long distances. I don’t get drinks, I don’t eat. So except for once, a couple of hours after departure, no bathroom breaks.l
5 hours between charges at a steady 75-80 mph (120-130 km/h) would be impressive range, though.
It would be even greater if it were possible to avoid the two-step installation. It certainly used to be possible to ship a binary inside a Firefox extension (I did that here: https://mackerron.com/zot2bib/), but I guess they may have shut that capability down for security reasons?
I don’t feel like that’s a reasonable analogy. Kitchen knives don’t purport to give advice. But if a kitchen knife came with a label that said ‘ideal for murdering people’, I expect people would go after the manufacturer.
Claude was great, but I did put a fair amount of my own time and (non-printing-specific) expertise into this. OTOH, sure, I wouldn’t be asking for a million dollars.
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