Subject: Re: Working printing software?

From: [email-masked] (Bob Dowling)
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 15:22:42 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
 [email-masked] (Sue Spence) writes:
|> I've heard a rumor that Sun is 
|> rewriting the lp stuff from the ground up,

I think it's a bit more than a rumour.  The following is taken from the 
Solaris 2.3 "Open Issues and Late-Breaking News for System Administrators"
(dated November 1993):

[begin quotation]

Print Spooler (lp) Feature Transition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Future Solaris releases will replace the SVR4 print spooler (lp).  A new
distributed print spooling capability will be provided in its place.  The new
spooler will be upwardly compatible with existing commands, and the existing
print spooler will continue to be supported until it is replaced.

The printing commands specified in the SVID (lp, lpstat, cancel) will
continue to be supported.  In addition, some of the other minor lp interfaces
will be available to provide compatability with the new spooler.  However, 
compatability with the other lp interfaces will be discontinued.  Applications
should use the interfaces specified in the SVID to ensure continued operation
during the transition.

The BSD compatability interfaces that are currently provided (lpr, lprm, lpq)
will ocntinue to be supported in future releases.

The SVR4 printing protocol will no longer be supported.  The BSD protocol
will be used for printing interoperability with existing Solaris systems and
other SVR4-based systems.  To simplify the transition, customers are advised to
configure clients of Solaris 2.x based print servers as if the print server was a
BSD system.

[end quotation]

Our local sales droid has been doing his damnedest to get us more information,
but has been unable to so far.  Can anyone add to this?  My guess is that,
instead of providing a BSD interface bolted on top of an SVR4 printing system, 
Sun will be providing a minimal SVR4 interface bolted on top of a BSD printing 
system (each system providing its native interfaces as well, of course).  But
its only a guess.  The other question left unanswered in all the above is "which
future release?".  
--------
Bob Dowling:                    UNIX Support,
                                University of Cambridge Computing Service,
[email-masked]              New Museums Site, Pembroke Street,
+44 223 334728                  Cambridge, UK.  CB2 3QG.