[Desktop_architects] Printing Summit 2006

[Till Kamppeter]

Oi,

as I already told during the meeting, I would like to organize a
Printing Summit in 2006.

Also Mike Sweet (creator of CUPS) showed with his slides that he is
interested.


Who should participate?
-----------------------

- Developers on important printing-related projects, like CUPS,
   linuxprinting.org, Gutenprint, HPLIP, GhostScript, driver projects,
   Cairo, X-Print, ...

- Developers of the printing part of desktop environments, like KDE or
   GNOME

- Developers in document-producing applications, like OpenOffice.org,
   Scribus, ...

- Developers responsible for the printing part of Linux (BSD, ...)
   distributions

- Engineers/representatives of the printer manufacturers, like HP,
   Epson, Brother, Kyocera, ...

- OpenPrinting.org

- Developers for color management

- Developers for interoperability (Samba printing, ...)

- Developers for printing in embedded systems

- ...



Where should it take place?
---------------------------

Somewhere in the US, as most important people on this area come from the US.



When should it take place?
--------------------------

At a time where as many as possible can participate.



What should be talked about?
----------------------------

- Making printing user-friendly, it should simply work

    o Usability

    o Consistent methods for printing, job handling, and printer
      administration

- Hardware support

    o Drivers and PPDs, preferrably from printer manufacturers and free
      software

    o Plug & Print (not Plug & Play, plug the printer and play for hours
      with different drivers)

    o Auto-download & -install of drivers

- OpenPrinting.org implementation

- CUPS 1.2 integration with desktops, apps, drivers, distros ...

- and more ...



How should it be organized?
---------------------------

- Conference with talks

- Discussions

- Depending on the amount of participants also breakout sessions
   (splitting in subgroups)

- Hacker room



Financiation
------------

We need sponsors, for example printer manufacturers, OSDL, distros,
software vendors, consulting companies, ...

What has to be financed is the venue, travel and accomodation for
participants, we need hardware (printers, a server, connectivity,
internet, ...) for the hacker room.



Venue/Hosting
-------------

We need conference rooms, the hacker room, cheap accomodation

Perhaps one could connect it to another event, like LinuxWorld or similar?



So, now I ask you for ideas, comments, sponsorship offers,
brainstorming, ...

    Till