[sugar] 9.1 Proposal: Printing support

[Martin Langhoff]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 4:31 AM, C. Scott Ananian <cscott at laptop.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 8:57 AM,  <pgf at laptop.org> wrote:
>> can's mdns/avahi help with discovery?  it'd be a shame to have to
>> manually configure a server address or name.
>
> DNS-SD is the Right Answer (which is not exactly the same thing as
> mdns).  But getting a standard "one school server, and a classroom of
> XOs" solution in place for 9.1 using a standard name ("printer", say)
> would be a good first step; we can handle autodiscovery (via CUPs or
> something else) for 9.2.

For the 9.1 timeframe we have several services that we'll want to
coordinate XS and XO so we need a "reasonably good" answer at least. I
hadn't heard of DNS-SD so I'll make sure we check it out.

...
> We should not ignore the fact that OLPCs are deployed in places like
> Birmingham and Montevideo, which have abundant access to paper and
> printers.

Ah, yes. On this thread people are arguing quite strongly for their
personal (and opposed) views, I can't quite figure out why. We'll add
a tool, and people will be smart and use it where appropriate. And
whether they print or not, the world won't end.

One thing I do want to mention -- an overly simplisting printing tool
will land us in hot water. If we do printing, we better pay attention
to the standard dialogs and provide most of the options in there, lest
we replay the Torvals-vs-gnome flamefest. (Now, flag this point for
_later_ discussion. What optiosn to provide and not provide is a big
flamefest of its own, but let's have it a bit later. )

cheers,



m
-- 
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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