[Info-vax] Encrypted TCP/IP network printserver spooled printing for OpenVMS (secure-IPP?)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2018-05-03 16:40:40 +0000, seasoned_geek said:

> Um, no. I got into this very argument when this very thing happened 
> with whoever it was in Apple in charge of the CUPS project when they 
> did it.... The serial and parallel support was removed and the required 
> input file was changed to PDF. What was Apple's justification?
> 
> We no longer make any computers with those types of ports.
> 
> Prior to this change serial and parallel support was provided by CUPS. 
> It's now been pushed out of CUPS and it was pushed out without warning. 
> This doesn't mean that distros didn't add their own OS level drivers 
> for serial and parallel ports, but this was dropped like a bomb during 
> an LTS release without warning. The change cause a rather significant 
> uproar on Ubuntu and other distro forums because existing installations 
> broke badly when upgraded.

Not just Apple.  DEC — remember them? — stopped making OpenVMS-capable 
computers with parallel ports, and serial ports became quite rare on 
DEC gear over twenty years ago.

The era of DECservers is long gone, too.  Whether those were offering 
serial ports or parallel ports.  External HP JetDirect devices are 
still available, for the odd parallel printer that's still in use.

And Adobe was the bunch that worked hard to end Postscript, though CUPS 
still does convert and print that.  That transition away from Adobe 
Postscript in printers and Adobe Display Postscript in various software 
packages was going well prior to the millennium.  Display Postscript 
support ended in 1998 back at DEC, and the Adobe implementation was 
later removed from the DEC distributions.

Stay with the old stuff if you want or need it.  You're clearly 
comfortable with that.    For folks that need it, telnet and lpr/lpr 
printing and Postscript emulation are all still available.  If you 
don't need IPP, don't use it.

Most folks will be moving forward as the hardware and software 
technologies change.  Yes, even those folks using OpenVMS.  That 
includes IPP and TLS.  Part of that is and will be with increased 
adoption of open source, too.  CUPS and llvm and otherwise.  This as 
VSI is not soon in a position to out-invest what open source can 
provide OpenVMS users.  And expect that VSI and others will be 
deprecating the most problematic of the existing and the old hardware 
and software support, too.






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