On Feb 24, 2026, at 7:22 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <[email protected]> wrote: > > You've caught me here. I had never heard of IPP. My understanding is > that it, too, is not supported by the base system. What would it take > to change that? It looks as if it could be a good alternative.
CUPS! > Declaring lpd obsolete would be fine then, and people who really want > it could then use a port. > > But CUPS is not the answer either, for most of the same reasons. In > addition, a comment from Theo (who confirmed that nobody had spoken to > the OpenBSD community): > > well, let them enjoy cups. I have studied that monster a few times. > it is a huge piece of software lacking any attempt at a security > architecture, and a culture around it that will never make changes. > in such circumstances, i always stick to small pieces of software > where we can hopefully delineate the boundaries. Note that CUPS is maintained unlike BSD's lpd & it also used on MacOS. It is licensed under Apache-2.0 and some exceptions. It comes with a collection of programs including lpr, lpd etc. It doesn't make sense to try to do a from-scratch lpd that supports IPP, or spend any resources on such an effort as this is a complex subsystem. Or updating lpd & friends to talk to modern printers. Normally I am a fan of maintaining old programs but it doesn't seem worth it here.
