[tlug] Apple owns CUPS

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Phillip Tribble writes:

 > I am a big fan of CUPS (as we all should be).

As Snoopy would say, phlbbbbt.  Tastes differ; I personally will not
go so far as to uninstall CUPS from a system where it is installed by
default, but for sure if there's any reasonable alternative (eg
lprng), CUPS will stay on the distribution medium where it can't
interfere with troubleshooting.

 > Hopefully the closed minded artist that Steve jobs is will continue
 > to make it free.

If he doesn't, who would ever notice (except for the name change,
since I believe "CUPS" is a trademark)?  Some distro like Ubuntu will
fork a free branch.  If Apple chooses to keep its improved code
proprietary, you haven't lost anything, as the already released code
will remain free.

However, I don't think you have to worry.  Apple has embraced openness
in the infrastructure, and CUPS is definitely infrastructure.