this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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FOSS-Firmware for printers? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 year ago by RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/foss@beehaw.org
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We all are pretty annoyed at how the printer industry is screwing customers over. There are a few printers that are really good but most of them suck and try to suck out your money by demanding ink when none is needed.

And i also know that it's nearly impossible to create an open-source printer that can be build by smaller businesses like the 3D printing space can do.

But are there any projects underway to reverse-engineer printer firmware and make it possible to flash the custom ROM onto a printer? No specific manufacturer in mind right now, but wouldn't that make things better? Simply disable all the stupid checks that claim that you NEED ink to scan or that you NEED yellow to print a black text?

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[–] caleb@lemmy.moorenet.casa 56 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You aren't the only annoyed one!

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.

Richard Stallman Wiki

[–] Bipta@kbin.social 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Now software runs our lives, spies on us, navigates for us and nobody cares. Wild.

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nobody has the time or expertise to care. Its not their fault. The corporations are still the ones to blame.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Bipta had it right. The people are to blame not the corps. The corps are doing their job. Any corp that does not do everything possible to generate profit for shareholders is failing to do its job. It’s our job as consumers to reject junk products. To boycott the worst (#HP). The consumers have failed to do their job.

Voters have also failed. We’ve failed to elect lawmakers who respect a #rightToRepair, to ban the practice of dropping support for hardware that has no #freesoftware.

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

People who are manipulated aren't at fault, the manipulators are doing their job and are to blame. Also what does boycotting matter when the government will bail out a company that is failing. Our money isn't a vote in some "free market", and even if we assume it is, our vote is worth 100s of millions less then the shitheads who got use into this problem. Also, not everyone can be an expert in every area, politicians should be delegating decision making of these things to comitees of experts (more). The governments job is to act as representitives of the people, they arent doing their job. And the corps can go fuck off to venus and enjoy that climate disaster life that they are trying (intentional or not) to creating on earth.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People who are manipulated aren’t at fault

That’s debatable.

the manipulators are doing their job and are to blame

Yes, I agree. But our blame on them doesn’t matter if we aren’t going to make the blame accountable by boycotting. Shareholders are happy to pat them on the back when the manipulation succeeds & brings profits.

Also what does boycotting matter when the government will bail out a company that is failing.

I do not believe that if HP were to fall due to a boycott that the gov would bail them out. Such a bailout would be extremely unpopular among the public (who opted to boycott HP).

Boycotting is the only tool in our toolbox. I would love to have a different toolbox.

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does HP even make the majority of the sales to individuals, or enterprise office spaces. Also, the public doesn't know about whllen the government bails out a corp (eg. Boeing https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-airlines-under-fire-90-billion-share-buybacks-stoke-controversy-bailout-pleas-least-1493934). There are companies that can't fail and large scale boycotts don't take much out of the their profit as they steal from the people and leech off government funding.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

HP has their hands in a lot of places. They even work as contractors for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). They offer services to govs who instead of buying HP computers they hire HP to deliver PCs that HP maintains. If private individuals would boycott HP extensively it would not sink HP but it would force HP to shrink by killing off their most shitty flimsy consumer products. A corp cannot justify to its shareholders an unsustainable money losing endeavor. HP would be forced to just focus on their industrial products.

The problem with the Boeing comparison is Boeing does not need a bailout due to a boycott. The pandemic is one of the cited factors for Boeing’s failure (accurate or not; optics matter. It’s a shame they had that excuse). So Congress believes a bailout is not wasted money. If Boeing were boycotted into need for bailout, it would not be feasible for Congress to save them. Boeing also has its hands in aerospace and defense to a much greater extent than just 7(X)7s, but those segments of the business could always be sold off to Lockheed Martin.

BTW, I boycott #Boeing myself. Boeing is an #ALEC member among other wrongdoing particularly in how their greed caused the aircraft crashes, death, and coverups. Ethical consumers have no choice but to boycott Boeing.

[–] Lemongrab@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

Understandable. Also fuck ALEC.

[–] Luke_Fartnocker@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

That's like saying "the government takes our money, wates it, spies on us, and abuses us, and nobody cares". We all care, but what are you going to do about it?

[–] mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 year ago

And this triggered the Free Software movement

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’m so grateful that the Xerox 9700 pissed off RMS. Otherwise we might not have had a FOSS movement.

At the same time, bizarre that printers have still not been liberated by now.

[–] maxprime@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s surprising just how bad printer/scanner software is. The desired function is so so simple but the software gets in the way so bad.

All I want from my printer/scanner is to press print, and have it not change its IP address so Windows can’t find it. And to have a big scan button that scans and uploads to an FTP server, none of this Windows Scanner nonsense. (FWIW I actually use NAPS2 which is quite good)

[–] kitsuneofinari@yiffit.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All I want from my printer/scanner is to press print, and have it not change its IP address so Windows can’t find it.

Easy fix, go into your router and setup a local static IP for your printer. Sometimes called DHCP IP reservation.

It should give a list all devices and their mac address on your network. Select your printer, then put in the current local IP the printer is using or a new local IP (setting a new local IP will require you to turn your printer off and back on after you save the changes to ensure the new local IP is handed out to the printer.)

Save changes, and you should never have to worry about the printer changing local IP's ever again.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What eludes me is that literally nobody except hp, xerox, canon, brother, dell, epson, kyocera, lenovo, lexmark seems to be making decent printers.

I know that the printer business is rough for sales people for some reason (the guy who I learned sales from 18 yrs ago was a printer salesman before becoming a coach). But what I don’t get is that there does not seem to be good money to make for small companies as they are not gaining on the big ones.

Is everything locked by patents or what is the deal here?

[–] pfannkuchen_gesicht@lemmy.one 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Since when do HP and Lexmark make decent printers?
I would think there's already too much competition so it's not a ver lucrative market to enter.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

Okay. Let me rephrase that: why are these the only brands that make printers except niche ones?

Too much competition in a 10 player market? This is an oligopol and likely the reason why there is an entry problem.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Oki (formerly Okidata) is the lesser of evils. After doing a deep dive studying the ethical problems of all the printer makers, Oki was the one I found the least dirt on. But Oki has pulled out of the US market entirely; probably couldn’t survive in a competition of tricks & traps.

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Brother was a small company and made decent printers that aren't stuffed with anti-consumer nonsense. Recently though, they also seem to be getting on the enshittification train. So to put it simply, it's the shareholder pressure that leads to a bad market. Patents come in at a close second.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I agree. What do you think would help?

I have heard of a law or precedent that put CEOs under the reign of the shareholders instead of the company, customer and society.

Do you happen to know what legislation did that change? Maybe that needs to be overturned.

Edit: I found at least the term. It is called shareholder primacy.

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know what law that is. It's also going to be different under different jurisdictions. Frankly though, I believe that the shareholder-driven megacorps are a lost cost for the entire society - be that providing good printers or not dumping CO2 in the atmosphere and causing a mass extinction event.

We need a different type of economy - one that is neither communist nor hyper capitalist (like the one responsible for the current conundrum). One where normal people are involved in production of high tech products. The FOSS ecosystem is a good example of it. We need something similar in all areas.

[–] Haui@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I begin to really like you! Probably the first person I have ever heard say that except myself. The open source community is pretty much the first one that is 100% stakeholder value (the people who use it, make it, more or less).

I figure that should be the same everywhere. No single figure that bankrolls a bunch of people and gets filthy rich while they barely get by.

[–] tesseract@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

the people who use it, make it, more or less

Precisely!

[–] GravelPieceOfSword@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That would be cool.

Here's my new setup that might not work for everyone, but I'd recommend thinking about if you're able to.

  1. Network printers are blocked from Internet by my router. They have static IP addresses allocated (permanent DHCP leases) for convenience.

  2. I have some Canon laser printers. I don't want to install Canon software across my devices, so I setup a cups print server (lxc container) where I installed the software.

  3. I setup and shared the printers (local network only), made them discoverable.

  4. I use the CUPS web GUI over ssh tunnel if I need to check on job queues and do maintenance/admin tasks (don't usually have to).

Clients immediately find the printers on the server, no driver required.

As a bonus, I made the margins 0 on the CUPS ppd on the server so that I get to print without margins when so desired (Canon has fixed minimum margins otherwise).

The one caveat is that the Canon drivers don't work on raspberry pi (arm), so while I have a to-do to get around that by using a virtualization layer, you need a separate Intel/AMD machine for the print server if your printer doesn't support ARM.

[–] d_k_bo@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Network printers are blocked from Internet by my router. They have static IP addresses allocated (permanent DHCP leases) for convenience.

I used to have a HP printer that refused to connect to my wifi network if it was blocked from accessing the internet. So I had to unblock it every time I restarted my printer.

[–] GravelPieceOfSword@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, that's so messed up: I didn't know HP did that.. I think it might just be a matter of time before others follow suit.

Sounds very Wireshark worthy!

[–] d_k_bo@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Honestly, I don't even think that it behaved like that for malicious purposes. It looked more like incompetence.

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Does it say “Internet required” on the box? If not, a good activist move might be to have a bunch of people buy them, set them up on a disconnected machine, then return them for a refund.

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

all those "print where you want" gadgets that are on kickstarter are using an hacked hp printhead, so i guess it can be reverse engineered or there's an arduino/esp32 library

unfortunately, hp printheads are literally the worst quality and least reliable that you can find on the market in the history of inkjet printers (i don't think anyone ever made worse printheads than HP in any point of history)

edit: searching "HP 6602 printhead arduino" gives many interesting results. But still, an epson printer from the late 90s that has been kept in a humid barn for three decades would be more reliable than an hacked HP. They don't even work when new and in warranty!

[–] TrenchcoatFullofBats@belfry.rip 4 points 1 year ago

HP HQ to Printer: DRINK A VERIFICATION CARTRIDGE

[–] Quexotic@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I noticed that you typed printhead there. Try a laser printer. It's a game changer... Unless you are doing photography prints.

[–] dark_stang@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you only need to print a few pages a month or year, send them to a corner store or Walgreens or something. It's just not worth it. I'm assuming the average person needs to print 10 pages or less a year, and this is why there isn't a big push to fix this problem. I think the last time I needed to print something was in 2021.

[–] RandomLegend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well in many parts of europe such copy shops arent really that usual.

I'd have to drive 20 min to get to the next one.

[–] dark_stang@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

That's a bummer. Just about every pharmacy and shipping store in the US also has a print shop inside of it. And our libraries do cheap printing too. So even if you're in the boonies you're usually only a few minutes away from something.

[–] Auzy@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Some printers also have trouble connecting to encrypted WIFI networks. So unfortunately people sometimes stupidly make a hidden open SSID opening themselves to attack.

So, there are a lot of additional side effects of crap printers too. Fortunately, the printer industry is possibly dying at this point..

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 4 points 1 year ago

This would be awesome.

[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Hahaha and we know what Xerox Bullshit software did...

[–] debanqued@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

No specific manufacturer in mind right now

MFDs are being tossed into dumpsters in high numbers. I keep pulling out HPs and Canons. The scanner functionality always works. I think the focus should be on hardware that is getting thrown away for environmental reasons. Even if the printing is toast, printers could be repurposed for all kinds of things since they are all network-attached now.

HP should be boycotted, so ideally FOSS f/w would only be developed for discontinued models so as to not incentivize procurement.

[–] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

is there a dell printer one

[–] xia@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Please elaborate/link....

[–] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

dell one me want