Re: WSJ - Article on Linux netbooks

[Kevin Kofler <kevin kofler chello at>]

Zoltan Boszormenyi wrote:
> I have a HP Laserjet 1020. I had to run hp-setup from HPLIP
> to make it work, it downloaded a proprietary piece of library
> to drive the printer.

Yeah, this is one of the printers HPLIP does not support out of the box,
because it uses a patent-encumbered compression method (JBIG) as part of
its transfer protocol. And as you say:

> The foo2zjs driver also works perfectly, the Zjs protocol is
> public and foo2zjs is free software. The jbigkit that Zjs uses
> is also free software. This driver is not in Fedora, only in
> RPMFusion because of some fskcing patent on the jbig1
> compression.

this is also the reason why foo2zjs is not in Fedora.

FWIW, I think we could get better support for that printer if somebody wrote
a Free drop-in replacement for HP's binary plugin using jbigkit, which
would allow using the printer with HPLIP (without non-Free binary-only
software) rather than the hacked-together foo2zjs driver. But for now
foo2zjs is the best you can get in Free Software for that printer.

        Kevin Kofler