4 ms·
The problem is that there are many kinds of printers... The cheap printers are "good enough" now -- there are plenty of brands which do not care about reported
by theamk 4y ago
The problem is that there are many kinds of printers...
The cheap printers are "good enough" now -- there are plenty of brands which do not care about reported ink/toner levels, nor about whether the cartridges are genuine or not. Get one of those, and it is good enough for you home. (As for RMS's specific problem with printers -- "report paper jam status" -- this has been solved long time ago). So what would be your motivation on new firmware for the home printers?
As for large office models, those are definitely more complex and their firmware could be buggy and could use a fix or two. But there are so many models, and each one is so expensive, it is simply unlikely to get enough users to develop an open source firmware. And even if we get open firmware for one of those, how many users will it get?
- snvzz 4y agoI use a monochrome laser. It was really cheap (<$100, over 10 years of service now). But back then it took serious effort to find it, a needle in a stack of cursed printers. And, today, I couldn't get the same printer anymore, as it was a Samsung, and their printer division ended up being sold to HP, which is infamous for nasty practices with printers and DRM.
- tonyarkles 4y agoBrother probably has a similarly priced option with similar reliability (I've got an HL-2270dw that was apparently released in 2012). I likely had the same Samsung you're referring to for years and years... ultimately the rollers wore out and, well, trying to replace the rollers on a $100 printer seemed like a wasted effort.
- snvzz 4y agoML-2855ND if curious.