foo2hp link doesn't work

[LinuxforPunks]

Referring to this driver page:

https://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-Color_LaserJet_CP1215
"The following driver(s) are known to drive this printer:

Recommended driver:
https://www.openprinting.org/driver/foo2hp

(which links to...)

https://snapcraft.io/ghostscript-printer-app
http://foo2hp.rkkda.com/

"PPD files (and the Foomatic XML files to generate them) come with the driver, therefore we do not supply PPDs here on the OpenPrinting site. "

The latter link to the project website is currently down/(or no longer maintained?), and I believe PPDs should be provided in preference to a Snap.

"PPD files come with the driver, therefore we do not supply the driver" would be more logical imo. Also this isn't a Snap in general but one provided specifically via the (Closed/Non-Free) Canonical Snap Store, whose terms and conditions I can't review in detail and across jurisdictions with solicitors and don't accept. Open printing shouldn't drop Open ppd files that have been available for this printer nearly 20 years, forcing the Closed SnapStore to be used. This probably wasn't a problem when the project was live, if they had the PPDs on their site, but of course they aren't live and why would they be?

[michaelrsweet]

Hi, so unfortunately there isn't a lot we can do about projects disappearing. The ghostscript-printer-app is hosted here on Github, and aside from the Snap package you'll likely find "native" packages on your favorite Linux distribution.

WRT providing a link to the Snap package instead of raw PPDs, understand that the printers supported by the foo2hp driver require that driver/filter to work, not just the PPD file, so the goal here was to provide links to source and binaries that can work on multiple Linux distributions. We can probably update the link to point to the ghostscript-printer-app sources instead but we'll need to determine what has happened to the upstream project and original sources...

[michaelrsweet]

@tillkamppeter Can you look into this?

[tillkamppeter]

This driver's upstream development got actually discontinued and the web site withdrawn by its author. There is a new site run by a new maintainer: https://foo2zjs.linkevich.net/

Due to this the only working links were to the source of the Ghostscript Printer Applications and to its only distro-independent package, the Snap. I cannot list distr-specific packages of 20+ distros and 10+ versions for each.

The links are in the Foomatic database and I will update them to have access to the driver's source code again.

If needed, I also transfer unmaintained drivers to OpenPrinting, to conserve their source code, as I did with the "splix" driver for example.