[cups.general] [ANN] PyKota v1.20 BETA is out

[Jerome Alet]

Hi,

I'm pleased to announce the immediate availability of PyKota v1.20
BETA.

PyKota is a GPLed print quota and accounting software for CUPS and 
LPRng written in the Python language. 

This software can store its datas either in LDAP or in a PostgreSQL 
database, and features both hardware and software accounting.

Hardware accounting supports SNMP, PJL, Netatalk, or any other 
method you may create yourself.

Software accounting natively supports PostScript, PDF, PCL3, PCL4, 
PCL5, PCLXL (aka PCL6), and ESC/P2 but here too you can use your own 
accounting software if you prefer. 

In fact its great extensibility allows you to plug your own software 
at most strategic points, giving an unprecedented versatility. 

PyKota is available either in the form of 20 US$ yearly 
subscriptions to Official packages (tarballs, .rpm and .deb), or for 
no fee through the use of CVS. 

Learn more about PyKota or download it from :

  http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/action_Presentation

List of changes in 1.20BETA compared to 1.19 :
----------------------------------------------

  - Added internal handling of SNMP and PJL_over_TCP/9100 queries
    through the magic "hardware(snmp)" and "hardware(pjl)" accounter
    directives' values.
    This tremendously lowers the CPU usage because no subprocess
    has to be launched, and is generally much more reliable than
    using an external script. The use of external scripts is still
    allowed though, but internal handling is now the preferred 
    way if your printer supports this.
    NB : For SNMP you need to install the http://pysnmp.sf.net
    module.
  
  - Introduction of the new dumpykota command which can dump PyKota's
    datas in the following formats :
    
        - comma separated values ;
        
        - semicolon separated values ;
        
        - tab separated values ;
        
        - XML.
        
    Importing datas in a spreadsheet can now be done through a data    
    dump and import, in addition to using the PostgreSQL ODBC driver.
    This allows people who use the LDAP backend to create nice reports
    too.
        
  - Introduction of the new autopykota command to ease the automation
    of user account creation on first print when the limiting factor
    is their account balance's value : this commands takes care of
    a special case not directly handled by edpykota.
    
  - Introduced the notion of PyKota administrators (e.g. members
    of the lpadmin group) to delegate priviledges to non-root 
    users. This is now enforced in dangerous commands like
    pkprinters, edpykota, as well as in the data dumper
    who could otherwise reveal private informations.
    The reporting tool and user warning tool accept
    to be run in extended mode by non-root users if they are 
    PyKota administrators.
    
  - Numerous fixes for charset encoding. All textual  
    fields are now stored as UTF-8 encoded strings.
    
  - Improvements in LPRng printer's hostname detection code.  
  
  - An md5 checksum of each job's datas is now computed  
    and exported to subprocesses as an environment 
    variable. It will be added to the database schema
    in the future, this will allow the admin to refuse
    duplicate jobs through a configuration directive.
    
  - Added the winbind_separator configuration directive to
    automatically strip out the Windows/Samba domain name
    when printing.
    
  - Added the --hardreset command line option to edpykota   
    to also reset users' life time page counters to 0 in
    addition to the actual page counter.
    
  - Added full support for PCL3 and ESC/P2 in software accounter.
    More than 60 GhostScript devices are now supported and checked
    when running the testsuite.
    Supported Page Description Languages are now :
    
        - DSC compliant PostScript ;
        
        - Binary PostScript ;
        
        - PDF ;
        
        - From PCL3 to PCL5 ;
        
        - PCL6 (aka PCLXL) ;
        
        - ESC/P2 ;
        
  - Improved the software accounter to correctly handle the
    number of copies if set in the job's datas (not PJL yet
    though).
    
  - All command line tools' help is now internationalized,
    as well as all manual pages.
    NB : For this BETA release only the English, French
    (and Belgian French), and Spanish help and manual
    pages are complete.
  
  - Added the German and Belgian-French translations.  
  
  - Lots of small fixes all over the place.
  
Comments are very much welcome.  

Thank you for reading.

Jerome Alet