Free Standards Group Unites Linux Printing Initiatives

*The Free Standards Group Unites Linux Printing Initiatives by Merging 
Linuxprinting.org* *with the OpenPrinting Workgroup*

/Support for Printing Will Now Be Added to the Linux Standard Base, 
moving closer to the goal of making printing on Linux “just work”/

San Francisco, Calif. – July 18, 2006 – The Free Standards Group (FSG), 
a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open 
source software standards, today announced Linuxprinting.org, the de 
facto standard repository for printer drivers on Linux, is merging with 
the FSG's OpenPrinting workgroup and will be integrated and supported in 
the Linux Standard Base (LSB). The result will be easier and 
standardized printing functionality on Linux and an ease of support for 
Linux and printing vendors and makes the Free Standards Group the 
central organization for printing on Linux and open source Unix. With 
this announcement, the Free Standards Group unifies all standardization 
activities for the Linux meta-platform, including desktop, server, 
application interoperability, developer support and printing.

Major printing vendors including Ricoh, HP, Epson, Kyocera, Brother and 
many others currently use Linuxprinting.org as their standard support 
vehicle for their Linux printer drivers. The system is used by the 
printer setup tools of most Linux distributions including Red Hat, 
Novell, Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva and others. The database currently 
lists 250 free software printer drivers and 2000 printers, with 10,000 
people visiting the site for printing support everyday. The FSG is also 
announcing is has hired Till Kamppeter, the current manager of 
Linuxprinting.org, to oversee this project and other Linux printing 
initiatives.

“The FSG is the only organization that can solve these types of issues 
for Linux,” said Till Kamppeter, manager of Linuxprinting.org. “Their 
support will make the site more reliable and will allow us to add 
printing API support to the LSB that will make printing easier for Linux 
users. The reach, visibility and stability of the FSG also will attract 
more printer manufacturers to the database which will make the supported 
list of printers even longer.”

“We are extremely excited to have linuxprinting.org and Till join the 
FSG fold,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards 
Group. “Integrating important projects like this database with the 
existing work of OpenPrinting and the LSB brings us even closer to our 
goal of a fully competitive and functional Linux platform for everyone: 
developers writing applications, end users using Linux for all their 
desktop and server operating needs, and the hardware, and software and 
printing manufacturers who want their products to work on multiple 
distributions of Linux. Unifying Linux printing services is an important 
step in that process.”


*Overwhelming Vendor Support for Merger*
"Merging Linuxprinting.org with the Free Standards Group is a great 
development for making printing 'just work' on Linux," said Hiroyuki 
Funahashi, general manager of Brother Industries, Ltd.
“We always appreciate the work of linuxprinting.org to help users work 
with our products comfortably.”

"Our Linux Team is delighted to see Linuxprinting.org merge with the 
Free Standards Group," said Olaf Meeuwissen of EPSON AVASYS Corporation. 
"We have been working with and contributing to both for quite some time 
now. Since its start Linuxprinting.org has grown to become the de facto 
standard site for end users to get their printers to just work. The 
FSG's OpenPrinting work group has been a mostly vendor driven effort to 
standardize printing. We expect the merge to get both sides to 
understand one another better, ultimately leading to a better printing 
experience for both."

"Konica Minolta is appreciative of the merging of Linuxprinting.org and 
Open Printing within the FSG and believe it will improve the printing 
functionality of Linux and UNIX," said Atsuhi Sekiguchi of Konica 
Minolta Business Technologies, Inc.

"Ricoh is pleased to see Linuxprinting.org merged with the Free 
Standards Group," said Yoshikazu Sugimoto, Vice President, Advanced 
Imaging & Network Technologies, Ricoh Corporation. “Linuxprinting.org 
serves as the primary information source for the user community printing 
with free software and has been a great success for our customers. The 
expanded scope of the Free Standards Group will increase printing from 
the Linux platform."

"We at Sharp are happy to hear that Linuxprinting.org and the FSG are 
joining forces,” said Jens Stark, product manager at Sharp Electronics. 
“An incredibly useful site combined with a strong organization is a 
hard-to-beat combination, not only when it comes to printing with free 
software. We are looking forward to continuing our support for printing 
with free software. Also, congratulations on hiring Till, one of the top 
printing experts on the planet!"



*Integrating linuxprinting.org with OpenPrinting*

For the past several years, Linuxprinting.org has been a central 
location for printing resources for Linux and Unix and the de facto 
standard for printer driver integration. In parallel, FSG's OpenPrinting 
workgroup has designed standard APIs for Linux/Unix printing workflow. 
Since both organizations have common goals and interests, the merging of 
the two projects under the FSG umbrella will create a central source of 
record for Linux and Unix printing. The result – and the bi-directional 
integration with the LSB – will be one central place for all 
printing-related topics which include:

*Standard printing APIs and libraries
*Hardware manufacturer and ISV support and consulting
*Legacy driver integration
*End user support

The linuxprinting.org database is implemented in XML and is accompanied 
by a universal Postscript Printer Description (PPD) file based print 
filter and software which automatically creates Adobe-compliant PPD 
files and complete print queues for all known free spoolers: CUPS, 
LPRng, LPD, GNUlpr, PPR, CPS, PDQ and spooler-less printing. With these 
queues, the user has access to the full functionality of the printer 
driver and can use all printer options out of applications (such as 
OpenOffice) or from Windows/Mac clients.

The OpenPrinting workgroup has recently released two specifications that 
enhance the interaction of applications and printers and help to achieve 
the goal of a standardized print environment in *nix environments. The 
two specifications – Print Application Programming Interface (PAPI) 
Version 1.0 and Job Ticket Application Programming Interface (JTAPI) 
Version 1.0 – are available today at http://www.openprinting.org/.

More information can be found at http://www.linuxprinting.org and 
http://www.freestandards.org <http://www.freestandards.org/>.


About the Free Standards Group

The Free Standards Group is an independent nonprofit organization 
dedicated to accelerating the use and acceptance of free and open source 
software by developing and promoting standards. Key Free Standards Group 
projects include the Linux Standard Base (LSB), Linuxprinting.org, 
OpenPrinting, OpenI18N, and the FSG Accessibility Workgroup. Supported 
by leaders in the IT industry as well as the open source development 
community, the Free Standards Group fulfills a critical need to have 
common behavioral specifications, tools and ABIs across Linux platforms. 
More information on the Free Standards Group is available at 
www.freestandards.org <http://www.freestandards.org/>.

-- 

____________________________
Amanda McPherson
Marketing Director
Free Standards Group
2370 Market St. #157
San Francisco, CA 94114
V: (415) 531-0483
F: (415) 354-1787
http://www.freestandards.org