I have put the development version of the plugin (release 3.1.0) in SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net). This is a service provided by VA Linux Systems to the open source community for hosting development projects, among other things. I've decided to do this for the following reasons: 1) SourceForge provides a complete hosting solution, including disk space, shell accounts, CVS service, mailing lists, web sites, and much more that I'm only just beginning to explore. VA seems committed to this service, and they are backing it with substantial hardware and people resources. 2) I want to decouple the Print plugin development from Gimp development as a whole. Currently there is a stable branch (3.0) that will have occasional bug fixes and possibly minor enhancements that do not impact stability. I'm looking forward to a great 3.2 release, but that will require a fair bit of development, and I want to make it available to the widest possible audience without destabilizing the version in the Gimp (I think things will get very unstable for a while with support for some of the newer printers). If we get enough stable code in 3.1, we might back port it to 3.0 for inclusion into the Gimp. 3) SourceForge has a large development community of its own, and hopefully we can draw upon the efforts of a broader community. 4) The whole issue of high quality printing in Linux (and Unix in general) seems to be a real hash right now. Ghostscript lacks a lot of stuff that's required (such as two-way communication between the printer and the driver, and between the driver and the application). CUPS looks more promising technically, if the mindshare develops. I think that the Print plugin as any more than a glue layer and UI should eventually go away altogether. This is better addressed in an environment like SourceForge than within the Gimp alone. The Gimp has a lot to contribute in this area -- it's a sophisticated graphical application with demanding output requirements -- but a lot of this stuff needs to happen at a lower level. I'd like to invite everyone here to check out SourceForge, and register for an account. There are two mailing lists, gimp-print-devel and gimp-print-announce. -- Robert Krawitz <rlk@xxxxxxxxxxxx> http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/ Tall Clubs International -- http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2 Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf@xxxxxxxxxxxx "Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works." --Eric Crampton
