proprietary binary drivers and cups.

[Michael R Sweet]

Anonymous wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I've been trying to find out if its possible to write a proprietary
> (binary only, closed source) printer driver for cups. It is not clear
> to me if its possible to do so. I have come across mixed messages in
> my reading on the subject so far.
> 
> Are there any such proprietary drivers there?

Yes, it is possible.

> Can someone please clarify if this is possible to do? If yes, How
> does one go about finding the interface definition for printer driver
> in that case? It is pretty clear that the DDK cannot be used for such
> drivers (its license clearly prohibits this).

Basically, if you are shipping drivers for MacOS X that only use the
standard CUPS libraries (libcups.dylib and libcupsimage.dylib) and
not any of the DDK stuff, then you can distribute your proprietary
drivers without any additional fees.

For any other operating systems, or for any drivers derived from
the CUPS DDK stuff, you either have to provide the drivers under
the GNU GPL license or license CUPS and/or the CUPS DDK from us.

You can contact me off-line for the details...

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Publishing Software        http://www.easysw.com