I do expect the number of drivers per operating system to fall
significantly.
But I do not expect that there will be one master driver per operating
system, which will be able to read and use all UPDF in the world.
So the question I'd like to raise is:
Do we expect any UPD to understand any UPDF?
Can a UPD reject certain UPDF's though the syntax is correct?
The background of the question is deeper than it looks like the first
second. Do we want the world to use the UPDF format to describe printers,
while accepting that different companies may write different UPD's for that
purpose?
I consider it as a good direction to push the format first. I know a number
of PDL's outside PostScript and PCL, which possibly can be described by a
well architectured UPDF. But I would not expect that companies, who push
these PDL's, will write a driver with a big PostScript and PCL section
additionally. On the other side I do not expect that the first UPD's, e.g.
if one would be written by HP, will be able to support every variant in the
POS (point on sale) or other special markets.
So I suggest that there will be fields in the UPDF, which allows a driver to
check, whether it is really able to work with a certain UPDF (some info
about the PDL to decide the UPD can support the appropriate vector language
etc.). These fields must be supervised to avoid nonsense.
I do not think that Oak would need these fields in the near future, but I
feel it's somehow following an open concept and can help the format in its
worldwide acceptance.
I would like to see this item discussed in Tokyo and New York. Even if we
disagree, it will be better to talk about it.
Norbert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 09 2000 - 15:39:01 EST