Getting EPSON drivers bundled (was Re: [sane-devel] Epson 4490 in Debian)

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

First of all, apologies to all the non-interested people on sane-devel
who think this is going way off-topic.  If we should take this
discussion elsewhere, please say so, but I would like to get this
archived somewhere other than our private mailboxen.

Till Kamppeter <till.kamppeter at gmx.net> writes:

> Julien BLACHE wrote:
>>>If something like that would materialise, I suggest we also drag in
>>>the CUPS and ghostscript packagers to get the EPSON AVASYS printer
>>>drivers on the right track as well.
>>># Johannes Meixner has already contacted us, Till Kamppeter just did.
>> 
>> 
>> That'd be nice indeed. I don't know if the printer drivers are
>> packaged in Debian, but they certainly could be once they'll be free
>> :)
>
> The free printer drivers from Epson Avasys are packaged in Debian, as
> they are built into ESP GhostScript ("gs-esp").

True, but there is also a boatload of inkjet printer drivers (not 100%
free) that might be accommodated somehow in the long run.  I know
Johannes (added to Cc:) is looking at them, you sent me two messages
about it this morning ...

# Desparately trying to tie in the scanners so this is marginally on
# topic for sane-devel ;-P
Then there are also the all-in-ones ...

Another thought occured during lunch, maybe we should also poll Red
Hat/Fedora Core to see if they'd be interested.  IIRC, Tim Waugh is
doing their scanner and printer packages.

If several major distributions show active interest in bundling our
drivers, EPSON may get the hint and give us a (tiny) green light to
make (some of) the changes needed to make bundling easier ...

FTR, I have tried to summarise what's going on here (as well as thru
other channels) and thrown that towards my boss.  Let's see what gets
thrown back.
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen                          EPSON AVASYS Corporation, SE1
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