[nextos]

Any CUPS daemon will raise the following warning on startup. I just copied this from my Systemd log:

  cupsd[873]: Printer drivers are deprecated and will stop working in a future version of CUPS. See https://github.com/OpenPrinting/cups/issues/103

Not saying this is the correct decision, but IPP Everywhere is available on most printers that are < 10 years old. Obviously, that rules out older printers, which are fairly common.

[account42]

From the mentioned issue:

> As for printer drivers, those few printers that "need" them can migrate to standalone applications/services using the CUPS API to provide an IPP Everywhere-compatible Printer instance. PAPPL provides a convenient framework for easily creating these applications and porting existing CUPS raster drivers, and the following printer applications are already available or (in the case of Gutenprint) under development:

[...]

> ps-printer-app: PAPPL-based PostScript printer application that supports all CUPS/PostScript printers via PPDs and includes all of the Foomatic and HPLIP drivers.

So drivers will still be supported in a sense, just not directly by the CUPS daemon.

[jorvi]

I have a Brother printer from 2019 (HL 2340) that does not support IPP Everywhere. A lot of other printers from before ~2020 don’t either.

You are (like so many other people) confusing IPP the protocol with IPP the driver, which is honestly not your fault and a terrible naming mistake.

And like you mentioned, people have way older printers because if all you do is print monochrome and mostly text, a printer from 2004 doesn’t lack much aside from AirPrint / Mopria. Which is why I suspect CUPS will not deprecate at least PPD drivers.

[account42]

If you read the linked issue you will see that the plan for legacy printers is to move the printer drivers under a separate application that CUPS can then talk IPP to.

So yes, CUPS itself will only support IPP without any printer-specific driver. Since mobile phones also only directly support IPP this sounds like a reasonable decision.

[jorvi]

> If you read the linked issue you will see that the plan for legacy printers is to move the printer drivers under a separate application that CUPS can then talk IPP to.

Ah, yes. Thanks for pointing that out! I wonder how much more secure that will make things for those who have to use legacy printers.

> Since mobile phones also only directly support IPP

Technically AirPrint is not IPP Everywhere, they use a different raster format and some different glue. For example my Brother printer supports AirPrint but fails ~50% of the IPP Everywhere self-certification tests. But that’s splitting hairs.