Martin Wuerthner has sent out this press release (quoted in full below).
This could mean that
RISC OS [4] Printing could be given a new lease of life. Leveraging off work done in the
Linux world under
GPL, Martin is looking at developing a new RISC OS printer driver based on the Linux gimp-print system.
The Press Release:
Announcing ROUGPS - the
RISC OS [5] Universal Graphics Printing System
Developing high-quality printer drivers for photo-real printing is a very demanding task. Native printer driver developments under RISC OS have fallen behind considerably and this situation is unlikely to change. Luckily, the
Linux community has an active group of people working on printer drivers for high-resolution photo-real printing on current inkjet printers (e.g., by Epson, Canon and
HP).
The ROUGPS project aims to create a RISC OS printer driver based on the Linux gimp-print system. It will be able to driver hundreds of printer models at their highest resolutions and with support for different media types and photo-real printing.
As gimp-print is
open source software published under the
GPL, it is likely that the results of the ROUGPS project will be made available under the same licence. This precludes the possibility of selling it as a commercial product.
Instead, everyone who is interested can donate money to support this project. Nobody is asked to send any money right now, it will only be collected when the project is finished. However, the project will only go ahead if enough users commit to a donation by sending an e-mail stating
the amount of money they are willing to donate.
You can find details on how to do this and further details about the project at:
www.mw-software.com/software/rougps/rougps.html [6]
Martin
