Canon BJC-6000

[Digital Wokan]

I looked into the issues regarding the development of drivers for the
6000.  There are currently 2 methods being worked on.  Neither one is
able to get any information from Canon because Canon insists that they
must sign NDA's to receive any info (thereby ruining any chance of the
drivers being open source).
So, yes, I do realize it costs a company nothing.  And I did politely
inform them via feedback and technical support submission (with a
request that it be shared with the monkeys in marketing - no I didn't
actually call them monkeys, turn off the flamethrower) that this printer
is now the last Canon printer I will purchase, and that I'm very
relieved that I learned of this driver deficiency in the privacy of my
own home rather than at work where we use Linux/Samba for our file and
print serving.  I informed them they saved me from a several hundred
dollar mistake and that I should research other companies such as HP and
Lexmark who have a greater percentage of full support under the Linux
OS.

So, while I may mouth off about them here on our list (pretty much in
hopes that others will see this problem and avoid the Canon mistake that
I made) where my opinion can be archived for them to weep over, I wrote
to them in what I hope came across as an intelligent and disappointed
tone.

Now, if someone would kindly chop all this extra stuff out, I'd like to
know if anyone's aware of a "tap" for a printer port.  If the exact
signals sent between Windows and the BJC-6000 (both directions) could be
captured for a given image or piece of text to be printed, I'm sure it
would greatly help in the reverse engineering efforts of the driver
writers in fixing the color problems and breaking the 720x720 limit
they've currently reached.

Kevin Brown wrote:
> 
> I still have a hard time trying to understand this attitude from people.  If a
> company doesn't want to spend the resources to support certain OSes that is
> their choice, if they try to stop others from helping with support (e.g.
> drivers) that is another matter entirely.  Bashing a company just because they
> don't support OS xyz doesn't really change anything, besides the companies that
> do release drivers only seem to release binary drivers and force you to conform
> to their expectations as to Distro and packages installed (e.g. Nvidia).  A
> quick search of the affor-mentioned site led me to this link
> http://linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=71392
> 
> Costs canon nothing to let others do this (as long as it isn't "supported" by
> canon), so it offsets the cost of development and lets them just worry about the
> markets they want (e.g. windows/apple).
> 
> > I guess it's time to write to Canon and ask thumb why they've got their
> > thumbs up their... but in a nice way.
> 
> > > DW,
> > > If you go to;
> > > http://linuxprinting.org/
> > > and look at "Printer Listings"
> > > I think you will find the BJC-6000 is at least partially supported.
> > > Lot of luck :-}
> > > Art
> 
> > > > I bid on one of these at uBid without looking first to see if it was
> > > > officially supported by Linux.  Boos and hisses to Canon, it isn't.  I
> > > > know the BJC-600 and 4000 series are supported.  Does anyone know if
> > > > those drivers will work with the 6000, or do I have to hook this thing
> > > > up to a winderz box?
> > > > --
> > > > Digital Wokan
> > > > Tribal mage of the electronics age
> > > > Guerilla Linux Warrior
> 
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-- 
Digital Wokan
Tribal mage of the electronics age
Guerilla Linux Warrior