Brother 2900 for FC3

[Cyrus Adkisson]

I think I bought a printer without an open-source driver, a Brother 
FAX-2900. It's one of those fax/copy/laser printing things. The Brother 
Corporation makes an RPM for RedHat 9 (which is, what, 4 or 5 years 
old?) but nothing else. I've tried to get them to provide source code 
for compilation on other architectures, but they apparently didn't listen.

My questions are:

1. Is there an open source driver for this printer that I don't know about
2. If I install the redhat 9 RPM and get the files onto my FC3 machine, 
how can I get lpd to recognize whatever driver file I need to work.
3. Aside from whether or not I will be able to get this to work, can 
someone tell me how open source printer driver projects get started and 
whether I have any hope of someone writing a driver for this particular 
model (I haven't the foggiest clue how nor the time to do it myself).

The RPM is available from Brother here:
http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/sane_drivers.html

A good PDF with specs can be found under "product brochure" here:
http://education.brother.com/ProductDetails_ProductID=PPF2900&Area=ZFAX1.aspx#spec

Info and file list from Brother's RH9 RPM:
]# rpm -q --info -l fax2900lpr-1.1.2-1
Name        : fax2900lpr                   Relocations: (not relocatable)
Version     : 1.1.2                             Vendor: Brother 
Industries, Ltd.
Release     : 1                             Build Date: Tue 03 Feb 2004 
04:25:23 AM EST
Install Date: Thu 07 Apr 2005 11:25:26 PM EDT      Build Host: 
localhost.localdomain
Group       : Applications                  Source RPM: 
fax2900lpr-1.1.2-1.src.rpm
Size        : 83071                            License: 2003 Brother 
Industries, Ltd. All Rights Reserved
Signature   : (none)
Packager    : root at localhost.localdomain
Summary     : Brother lpr Printer Definitions
Description :
Brother printer Driver
/usr/bin/brprintconf
/usr/lib/libbrcomplpr.so
/usr/local/Brother/inf/brFAX2900func
/usr/local/Brother/inf/brFAX2900rc
/usr/local/Brother/inf/brPrintList
/usr/local/Brother/inf/paperinf
/usr/local/Brother/inf/setupPrintcap
/usr/local/Brother/lpd/filterFAX2900
/usr/local/Brother/lpd/psconvert
/usr/local/Brother/lpd/rawtobr

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Cyrus