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<chapter id="final-word-from-author">
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<title>Final word from the Author</title>
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<sect1 id="who-am-i">
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<title>Who am I, what is my business? </title>
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<para>
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My employer is Danka Deutschland GmbH, a leading and
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manufacturer-independent provider of professional and hi-speed digital
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printing systems, black-and-white as well as color. Danka provides
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hardware, software, service, maintenance, consumables and customized
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solutions for the products in its portfolio. I work there as a
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System Engineer. Amongst the brands Danka offers are Heidelberg
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(formerly Kodak), Canon, &Hewlett-Packard;, Hitachi, Infotec and
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EfI.</para>
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<para>
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My acquaintance with &Linux; and the Free Software community is not
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too old. When I started to play around with &Linux; at the beginning
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of 1999, my deepest disappointment was the poor support for
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printing. True, I made all our machines spit out simplex prints -- but
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what about duplex? What about punching the output? How to make sorting
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work? Or stapling, cover sheets and all the other beautiful finishing
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options our engines offer to customers? No way -- at least for me as a
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non-geek!</para>
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<para>
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I began a search on the Internet for a solution. Fortunately not
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much later, in May 1999, Mike Sweet, principal developer of &CUPS;,
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announced the first Beta release of this superb piece of printing
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software. After trying it briefly, I knew this was it!</para>
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<para>
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Next thing I attempted: to make &Linux; distributions interested in
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this new stuff. Believe me -- it was more than tenacious! They seemed
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to think they already had the best thing they could get in
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printing. One reason probably was that they (and many &Linux;
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developers) never had to think about how to best support a printer
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duplexer -- because one had never come near their own
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desks...</para>
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<para>
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Finally, my attempts to make some &Linux; print publications
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interested in &CUPS; <quote>backfired</quote> on me - one editor
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squeezed me into writing a series on the subject myself. And this is
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how some people started to give me the nickname <quote>CUPS
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Evangelist</quote>. I will not get rid of this nick anytime soon, now
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that even the &tde; people wedged me into their timeframe of
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releases. Oh, boy...</para>
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<para>Anyway, &CUPS; is now making its way around the world and it
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might well become a triumphal one: I am a little bit proud to have
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supported and contributed to this from near the beginning.</para>
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<para>It should encourage you: even if some more experienced &Linux;
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users than you are skeptical about it, and even if your programming
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skills are next to zero (like mine) - there are a lot of tasks and
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jobs and ideas, and talent that you can contribute to the Free Software
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community. Not least within the &tde; project... ;-)
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</para>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="credits">
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<title>Credits</title>
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<para>I'd like to thank...</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Mike Sweet for developing &CUPS; in the first place</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Jean-Eric Cuendet for starting <application>kups</application>
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and <application>qtcups</application>, the predecessors of
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&tdeprint;</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Michael Goffioul for doing all the hard work recently</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Martin Konold for thinking twice</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Sven Guckes for teaching me a few things about the art of <quote>survival
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on the terminal</quote> (just in case &tde; is not there ;-) )</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>...too numerous others to mention who also let me snatch bits
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and bytes of knowledge
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off them</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para> and last, but not least: Tom Schwaller for encouraging me
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to get into <quote>documentation
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writing</quote></para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</sect1>
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<sect1 id="caveats">
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<title>Caveats</title>
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<para>&tdeprint; has been developed on a system using &CUPS; 1.1.6.
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&tdeprint; has been tested on other versions of &CUPS; and so
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far no incompatibilities are known. By the time of writing
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this Handbook, &CUPS; 1.1.9 is out with a few new features
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not yet supported by &tdeprint;. Of course you are able to
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access these features, but you will need to bypass &tdeprint;
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and use the &CUPS; command-line tools or edit configuration
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files manually. &tdeprint;'s development will go on and this
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Handbook strives to always be the best available user documentation
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resource for it.</para>
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</sect1>
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</chapter>
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