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Apple Licenses CUPS

Posted by pudge on from the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dept.

bmeteor writes: "Short and very sweet: CUPS is licensed by Apple. A boon for both Apple and GNU." CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) is a system based on the Internet Printing Protocol for standardized printing on Unix systems. That's nice, but when can I print over the network to my Epson inkjet, like I can in Mac OS 9 with USB Printer Sharing?

2 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not so good for GNU by SirRichardPumpaloaf · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Aqua-fied version probably wouldn't be much use to non-OS X users, so I don't see how that's much of a loss to GNU. Apple will probably want to keep the underlying stuff in sync between Darwin and OS X, though, just for their own convenience. If they make any changes to the unix-level parts that get distributed with Darwin they'll have to make the source available. I guess we'll see how it turns out, but for the moment I don't see how more widespread adoption of an improved open printing protocol could be thought to be bad.

  2. Plenty good for GNU by cduffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funding Free Software development by selling non-Free licenses is a perfectly reasonable and good action; the revenues from this, remember, will in large part go to pay the folks who write the Free version.