On Tue 08 Mar 2016 at 12:36:56 +0100, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Tue, Mar 08, 2016 at 12:02:14PM +0000, Brian wrote: > > [...] > > > You are not bothered about the security of the closed source firmware on > > the printer but are concerned about a closed source driver on the PC/ > > This is the usual dangerous strawman which leads, at the end, to do > nothing: "as long as there's something bad happening at X, why would > you care about Y". > > Your harddisk has "closed source" firmware. Heck, your CPU, if any newer, > has "closed source" firmware (Intel IME, AMD has something similarly > horrible). Why are you using Debian GNU Linux in the first place? > > For me, there's an answer to that, and it is that conquer happens > gradually, sometimes by reverse engineering, sometimes by persuasion. > Watch at the evolution of Qualcomm's stance in the wake of Raspberry > Pi's success for a beautiful example of the second. > > As life is, there's no "total victory", but if you do nothing, you > lose.
I asked a question, one which may give pause for thought and give focus and direction to what is presumably the chief objective - printing with a Brother MFC printer. No argument (strawman or otherwise) was given; no view advanced. No Brother bashing. :) A pragmatist would take the Brother lpr driver option. Together with the PPD it offers all the functionality the printer is capable of. As a matter of interest, the lpr driver is legally distributable by Debian. Relying on a Generic PPD could lead to satisfactory printing. I'd try it with a USB connection first. Thinking on, it is possible to adjust the Brother PPD to not use the lpr driver. This would give a free printing system on the PC. The AirPrint facility can also be used to avoid any concerns with security on the PC.