Update to 2.3.0?

[Sebastien Bacher]

There is a new cups version out, likely not for this cycle though?

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The 2.3.x line got only a stable release on Fri, Aug 23, one day after Feature Freeze for Eoan. As I was watching for software updates before FF there was 2.3rc1 for a very long time without getting final, so I ended up using 2.2.12 for Eoan.

The reason why CUPS 2.3.x did not get forward quickly and why I did not try to make Mike Sweet (author of CUPS) releasing 2.3.0 in time for our FF is due to a license conflict.

According to Mike's presentation on the OpenPrinting Sunmmit 2018 (May)

https://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/liaison/openprinting/presentations/cups-plenary-may-18.pdf

CUPS 2.3.0 should have been released in June/July 2018 under the Apache License 2.0 (Apple changed the license to fit better with Mac OS X). As the license is not compatible with the (L)GPL2 licenses of a part of cups-filters and other software in non-Mac-OS systems Mike told me that I would not need to change any licenses in cups-filters and he will let the case be solved by the law department of Apple. In the time being he would backport all bug fixes into the 2.2.x line which is still under the old license and I should use this line for Debian and Ubuntu.

Now since then more than one year, one more OpenPrinting Summit, and 3 Feature Freezes of Ubuntu have passed until finally Apple solved the problem (I assume) and Mike released 2.3.0. The solution is in the NOTICE file which makes an exception to the Apache license in the LICENSE file:

----------
-- CUPS Exceptions to the Apache 2.0 License --

As an exception, if, as a result of your compiling your source code, portions
of this Software are embedded into an Object form of such source code, you
may redistribute such embedded portions in such Object form without complying
with the conditions of Sections 4(a), 4(b) and 4(d) of the License.

In addition, if you combine or link compiled forms of this Software with
software that is licensed under the GPLv2 ("Combined Software") and if a
court of competent jurisdiction determines that the patent provision (Section
3), the indemnity provision (Section 9) or other Section of the License
conflicts with the conditions of the GPLv2, you may retroactively and
prospectively choose to deem waived or otherwise exclude such Section(s) of
the License, but only in their entirety and only with respect to the Combined
Software.
----------

https://github.com/apple/cups/blob/v2.3.0/NOTICE
https://github.com/apple/cups/blob/v2.3.0/LICENSE

This means that we now can advance to the 2.3.x line of CUPS in Ubuntu.

The question is now whether we would do a FFe to still land this in Eoan or simply leave it for next cycle.

Except new features (which I have to find out which they are, Mike does not make this very easy) advantage is that we will better test it before the next LTS (20.04), 19.10 is the "dress rehearsal" of the LTS, Some basic testing to judge CUPS 2.3.0 at least as usable and to have any packaging problem already solved is done by 2.3rc1 already being in Debian Experimental.

For getting the new CUPS into Eoan we can probably sync the package from Debian within the coming week, at least if Debian accepts the license solution, otherwise OdyX will upload it to Debian stable quick...

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

New features of 2.3.x are also listed in the 2018 presentation

https://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/liaison/openprinting/presentations/cups-plenary-may-18.pdf

and updated in the 2019 presentation:

https://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/liaison/openprinting/presentations/cups-plenary-april-19.pdf