[cups.general] usability of cups [was: Re:

[Hawker, Daniel]

 BTW: the networks of my 
> customers are not connected to internet and are small offices 
> (about 5 persons). I hope this info helps that one day a 
> small business edition of cups will be released. ;-)
> 

I don't really see what that will accomplish (small business version).
CUPS is pretty simple to configure as long as you don't want to do
anything difficult and a *small business version* would likely be just
the same backend but with a slightly simpler install and interface that
would be suitable for *simple* configs. And to be honest most of this
has already been achieved by many vendors. For instance Suse, RedHat,
Apple, etc, package CUPS and a simplified printer config interface
within their appropriate OS distros.

The *reason* for simple small business versions is usually because small
businesses cannot afford full-time IT staff both in monetary and keeping
the IT guy busy terms. As such the simple tasks (adding a user, creating
a new print queue, swapping tapes over, etc) are inevitably handled by
people with other jobs, be they secretaries, salespersons or CEOs. These
users don't want to have learn how things work, nor should they, its not
their area of expertise.

Anything that is out of the ordinary and unique (such as your
application) will require a bit more thought and research. This is the
same for many, if not all applications. In these instances, you have to
bite the bullet and either learn more about the app or pay for someone
to help you, be that a consultant/techie or the vendor.

If you require a small business version of CUPS, I'm sure ESP will sell
you a version that has an appropriate service level agreement to match
those needs.

Regards

Dan

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Dan Hawker
IT Support & Network Manager
Animal

daniel.hawker at animal.co.uk

(http://www.animal.co.uk)

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