[Desktop12.04-Topic] New CUPS filters package

[Till Kamppeter]

Blueprint:

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-p-new-cups-filters-package

Mike Sweet intends to remove the filters which are not used by Mac OS X 
from the CUPS upstream package:

http://www.cups.org/str.php?L3930

We have agreed on this on the last OpenPrinting Summit and the filters 
will be continued and hosted by OpenPrinting. In addition, the filters 
for the PDF printing workflow will not be adopted by CUPS but joined 
with the CUPS filters we overtake.

All Linux distributions would have to include this new CUPS filters 
package then to get CUPS continuing to work and have the same feature 
set as before. Due to the fact that this package will use the PDF 
workflow by default and that all major desktop applications send their 
print jobs already in PDF, this will complete the implementation of PDF 
as standard print job format in all distros (if they do not patch 
against the PDF workflow). See also my updated web page:

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdfasstandardprintjobformat

This will also clean our heavily patched CUPS package somewhat.

We need a name for this new upstream package. Should we call it simply 
"cups-filters"? Or "op-cups-filters"? Or do we rename Foomatic to 
openprinting and have the packages

- openprinting-db
- openprinting-db-nonfree
- openprinting-db-engine
- openprinting-rip
- openprinting-cups-filters

Note that we keep foomatic-rip/openprinting-rip separate from the CUPS 
filters as this filter is a universal filter which also works with many 
other printing systems.

Another decision to make is whether we really should maintain all the 
filters which get over to us from CUPS or whether we should discontinue 
some. The filter set will contain "imageto..." and "textto..." filters 
which are not made use of by the usual desktop applications, they send 
all PDF (and some send PostScript). Alternatively, these filters could 
be made optional.

Usually these are decisions to be made by upstream, in this case 
OpenPrinting, but in this session I want to have some pre-discussion 
from the distribution point of view, so that when this new upstream 
project gets created it will be created with the distro's needs in mind.

    Till