Free hardware and open source and hp printers?
- Inicie sesión ou rexístrese para enviar comentarios
My hp printer is not listed on h node. For gnulinux hp makes hplip software. Hp states it is open source software. In my ubuntu package manager hplip is present and many other packages tied to hp.
What kind of software is hplip? Is it source code? Is it a matter of licenses that fsf will not list all these hp printers on h node?
The hp printers that are on h node, what software do they use and who made it? If a printer is not listed on h node, then it cannot be used in combination with trisquel, also not as an open source printer? Trisquel and free hardware in general is much a matter of focusing in advance on what hardware to select?
h-node.org lists only hardware that its users tested and reported
there. All printers supported by free drivers (without nonfree
firmware) at versions included in Trisquel should work.
This is the page (and the 'Supported Printers' link there) [1] to goto to
find out if a HP printer is supported by the free software hplip
driver. You might need a version more current than in Trisquel 6.0 if
your printer is more recent. There are a couple of methods to get the
latest version on that page.
Tonlee,
I had written to fsf to add HP printer to their list of hardware that support free software, especially h-node a week ago. If possible please check whether thy have done it.
Thanks. That means if you want to know if your printer is free hardware, then connect it to a trisquel computer? About the software, if the printer works on trisquel, then where does it come from? Trisquel will only use free software but hplip is not? Another thing is, if free software is made in opposition to non free software, then it is likely that the free software will not include surveillance features that the non free option may have. On windows I think hp software did what it could to send info about your hp printer to hp. If the hplip software, free software or open source, is produced by hp and there has been no independent audit, then how do you know if hp has not kept survaillance features in their printersoftware? They have an interest in keeping them in the hp software.
Hi Tonlee,
I am having a HP Deskjet D1500 series printer. It works like charm with Trisquel GNU/Linux 6.0.1 LTS version. So I understand, atleast from software point of view, the HP Printers of D1500 series are completely compatible with free software. But the same may not be true for some latest models of HP.(You need to check it with your local HP vendor)
Now coming to Hardware, it cannot be affirmated a Hardware which supports a free distribution to be 100% free; Reverse engineering the Technical schematics/Hardware Description code of the product(Here your Printer) with the permission of the company, alone can prove it indeed free.
It can also be a possibility that a hardware that can work for a free distribution can also have non-free firmware blobs. So it would be wise to avoid using such a suspected device for communicating sensitive/private data.
You can actually check that alone:
- Go to http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/supported_devices/index.html
- Select the type and the model of the printer and click "continue"
- Check that "Support level" is "Full", that "Recommended?" is "Yes", that "Driver plug-in" is "None" and that "Requires firmware download" is "No" (do not forget those last two items at the bottom of the page)
- You can also look at "Minimum HPLIP version" to see what version of Trisquel will give you an out-of-the-box support (Trisquel 6's repository contains HPLIP 3.12.2; Trisquel 7's repository contains HPLIP 3.14.3)
- Inicie sesión ou rexístrese para enviar comentarios