Comment # 14 on bug 1128467 from Martin Wilck

(In reply to Johannes Meixner from comment #13)
> Martin Wilck,
> can you provide some facts behind why you think
> "lots of printers out there will stop working"
> regardless that I wrote in comment #11 that
> "for each HPLIP <model>-hpijs.ppd.gz PPD file
>  there is a matching <model>.ppd.gz PPD file
>  (the PPD files without 'hpijs' use HPCUPS)"
> so that all models where HPIJS works should be
> also supported by HPCUPS.

What will happen to printers configured with hpijs, like mine?
Will they be auto-magically be switched over to hpcups? If yes,
who'll take care of mapping the different options of the two 
drivers to each other (think default paper size, quality)?
Or will they suddenly be dysfunctional, or disappear? What will the user
experience be for users who need to change / transition?

> In other words:
> What HP printers out there where HPIJS works
> do not also work with HPCUPS?

That wasn't my point. I believe you that hpcups "works" with almost all models.
I was talking about the transition. I just checked: on all SUSE systems I use,
hpijs was configured for my officejet, and for my (meanwhile dead) Envy 5530 as
well. I swear I have not actively overridden hpcups by hpijs. These printers
have been set up on various systems using hp-setup from hplip 3.16.10 to
3.17.9. So it's not unlikely that others out there are using the same
configuration. I have one Fedora system where the printer runs with hpcups
(don't ask me why, it wasn't a concious decision either).

I've just made the test on my OfficeJet 6950 - quality-wise, the 
output is about the same, perhaps the hpcups output is even slightly 
better, and it actually prints borderless photos, which I haven't figured out
how to do with hpijs. OTOH, hpcups didn't get the bottom margin right on A4 and
hpijs did. Altogether I agree that hpcups is probably a better, at least
equally good, driver.

I'm not generally against phasing out hpijs, but I don't think it's a good idea
to do it as a reaction to the regression reported in this bug, and I do think
it should be done with a suitable transition phase during which the hpijs is
marked as deprecated and suggestions to switch the driver are made to users in
some way. If users do that before the phasing-out happens, the transition will
be smooth - it's no problem at all to use several printer queues with different
drivers at the same time.

(Btw, my OfficeJet has that "HP Fax 4" functionality. hp-setup configures it
automatically for printers that support fax. I've never used it because my
printer has no Fax connection).