[Printing-summit] printer manufacturer roundtable

Olaf Meeuwissen olaf.meeuwissen at avasys.jp
Thu Oct 19 19:25:00 PDT 2006


Sorry for the late followup.  Been busy prepping slides ...

Hin-Tak Leung <hintak_leung at yahoo.co.uk> writes:

> --- Olaf Meeuwissen <olaf.meeuwissen at avasys.jp> wrote:
> <snipped>
>> Please remove me from this list.  EPSON AVASYS is *not* part of EPSON
>> and we can't speak for them from a manufacturer point of view.  AVASYS
>> is a Linux/free-software-related company as far as the Printing Summit
>> is concerned.
>
> Since you mentioned it - Can you explain the nature of the
> relationship between Epson Avasys and Epson ("Epson Seiko") ? As far
> as I understand it, Epson Avasys is a branch/subsidiary of Epson
> Seiko responsible for some software/driver related projects, and
> yes, you probably don't have access to all of a manufacturer's point
> of view, since Avasys does not deal with the hardware/firmware side
> of things, as far as I know.

EPSON AVASYS and SEIKO EPSON are separate entities.  SEIKO EPSON is
our customer.  At the same time, SEIKO EPSON is a major shareholder
in EPSON AVASYS.  Hence the inclusion of EPSON in the company name,
I think.

> Also, the "linux/free-software-related" part I am not sure - some of
> drivers shipped by Avasys contain binary-only components (may not
> may not be currently - it has been a long time since I last looked
> at any avasys drivers in detail) So I would probably describe it as
> "software/driver-support company for the linux market".

The drivers we make available are as free as we can make them within
the confines of customer demands.  As much as possible we try to get
the need for free software across, but we can not always make things
100% free :-(

FYI, PIPS Lite is now 100% GPL'd.  The older line of PIPS packages
will continue to contain non-free bits, AFAIK.  Both provide drivers
for EPSON inkjet printers and all-in-ones.

On the scanner and all-in-one front, Image Scan! for Linux, has been
modified to get rid of the dependency on non-free bits in its SANE
backend, at the expense of support for certain models.  These models
require an additional module that will be picked up by the backend if
installed.

For the laser printers, most drivers are free.  Some still depend on
non-free software.

> Sorry for nitpicking...

You're welcome.
-- 
Olaf Meeuwissen                          EPSON AVASYS Corporation, SE1
FSF Associate Member #1962           sign up at http://member.fsf.org/
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Penguin's lib!       -- I hack, therefore I am --               LPIC-2




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