Desktop Team Updates - Monday 1st August 2022

Project Discussion Desktop
9

Back from GUADEC 2022 in Mexico, so this update is for 3 weeks.

  • cups-filters: Continued with restructuring towards the cups-filters 2.x release, continuing replacing direct PPD file access in the filter functions by converting PPD options and attributes to IPP printer attributes and control options in the ppdFilterLoadPPD() function (which calls ppdLoadAttributes()) in libppd. Converted also cfFilterBannerToPDF(), cfFilterTextToPDF, and cfFilterTextToText(), and while doing that fixed also several bugs in them. Now the only filter function remaining which I will fully convert is cfFilterUniversal(). cfFilterPCLmToRaster() is only needed for scanning, not for printing, therefore I will only remove any PPD file support from it but will not create a PPD support wrapper filter function in libppd. The cfFilter...ToPS() filter functions will get completely moved over into libppd as PostScript is as obsolete as PPD files and only there to support legacy printers (as I already told here some weeks ago.
  • OpenPrinting: The new pages to be linked from the “About Us” page, “How did this all begin?” and “Our principal achievements” are principally completed now, perhaps they receive some more links and little fixed. The third, page, “what we are currently doing” will come later as I am trying to get cups-filters 2.0b1 ready for the Kinetic Feature Freeze.
  • OpenPrinting: Chatted with Violet Kurtz, student at OSUOSL, the place where the OpenPrinting web app for the Foomatic printer/driver database is hosted, about the implementation of the look-up service for Printer Applications (needed by printer setup tools to find Printer Applications on the internet) and he told that it is nearly completed.
  • Ubuntu Summit 2022: Further participation in the organization, especially the planned sessions. One idea I suggested is a Snap Tutorial Day, a 1-day tutorial to learn everything about snapping apps for free software projects of the community, consisting of intro panel and several tutorial units, held by different speakers, experts and enthusiasts on each of the subjects. @ilvipero, manager of the Ubuntu Summit, but also many Snap enthusiasts and potential speakers, @local-optimum, @kenvandine, @hellsworth, … like the idea. I also suggested to give a lightning talk about running Printer Applications under WSL to rescue legacy printers abandoned by Microsoft and/or the manufacturer. For this I had some chats with @toktamis and got @cnihelton as user #0 (he has such a printer) and tester. The WSL team likes this use case for WSL and is well cooperating with me. Further session ideas are an OpenPrinting community session together with OpenPrinting’s HR manager Aveek Basu and Red Hat printing maintainer Zdenek Dohnal (similar to the Office Hours) and an OpenPrinting vs. Flutter session for discussion of the Flutter people’s printing needs. Also participated in the weekly call on July, 26, still from Mexico.
  • GUADEC 2022 in Guadalajara, Mexico: Prepared my talk and attended the conference. My talk (Video, Slides) was successful! There could be more people in the room (the Apokalypse talk before mine in the other room has overrun) but there were some questions, and a hallway session with Sebastian Wick about the abolishment of colord. I also helped Logan Rathbone to get driverless printing working on Slackware. And have seen a lot of nice places in Mexico! Was a great trip of the Canonical Gang consisting of me, @bwyazel, @hellsworth, @nteodosio, and @3v1n0! Also added my comments to the GUADEC 2022 report.
  • Linux Plumbers Conference 2022 in Dublin: Got @madhens to help me on the stage on the OpenPrinting micro-conference, mainly for questions of remote attendees (practically all the speakers participate only remotely). Thanks a lot to her. She is in Dublin for the Open Source Summit anyway and now she will have access to the whole Linux Plumbers for free. Also did some work on the distribution of (free) speaker tickets to participants of my micro-conference.
  • Google Summer of Code 2022: Mid-term evaluations have passed and 7 of the 8 contributors passed. Only the one on the native Gutenprint Printer Application failed, all the ones on the really essential projects for completing the New Architecture are doing well. All of them have given kudos to their mentors, especially to me.
  • Bugs.
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