Foss printer when?
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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Unironically, this is why RMS was radicalized.
RMS: gestures at GCC and the whole GNU/Linux ecosystem Look man, all I wanted to do was to print this letter to my ma...
i came across this explanation of it, haven't verified it directly but he seems to make good content:
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZX8OaZZDlM8
he says theres identification each time you print using the yellow ink, and basically is a counterfeit currency countermeasure
id kill to have a foss print setup though
It's a feature that can be turned on the confidential documents but I don't think it's actually on by default.
You can check for it anyway, just print a document then attempt to scan it, if it's got the track marks it will refuse to scan because one of the things the track marks do is block scanning, although you can still take a photo of it because the camera probably won't be able to see the track marks so it's not 100% secure. In fact it's largely considered an obsolete security method these days, along with pink flimsies.
good to know, thanks!
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Oh FFS. Not Brother as well. I used to recommend them to everyone. Who is left with unshittified printers?
Epson inkjets with refillable tanks probably.
Depending on the frequency of your printing, they can suck as well. Chronically clogged nozzles are maddening.
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I really hope Brother is telling the truth!
Same. My printer works fine, and I recently replaced my toner (went genuine because I found a decent deal), so I probably won't need another anytime soon.
That said, I will no longer be recommending them until this is cleared up. I won't be recommending against them though, because I don't know of a better company, but I'll just recommend people go to their local library or print shop or something and not deal with having a printer at home.
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I'm curious how this will go down in Australia. Seems like a pretty solid slam dunk refund, oh the product doesn't work as advertised anymore?
Cool, I've had this for 5 years and now I'd also like a full refund under Australian Consumer Law.
Motherfuckers.
(I don't actually own a printer)
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We seriously need a FOSS+FOSH printer
I have even thought of some names:
- Gutenberg
- Aldus
- Manutius
It's really surprising this doesn't already exist. It's such a hated piece of tech, I would have thought someome would have thought they could do better! I don't know enough to do it myself but I'd sure as hell support a project to do it!
It's not, though. Printers are actually fairly expensive to manufacture, and they're sold heavily subsidized by the companies in order to sell you a decade of printer cartridges where you make up for that loss. It was the first tech subscription model.
If someone made and sold a shitty inkjet printer at cost, the last time I saw something written up on this years ago, it was several times more than the current cost of printers. And consumers are stupid, so they will go for the immediate cheap thing and get locked in to buying proprietary cartridges rather than invest in saving money long term.
What we need is a Graphine OS for existing printers. A repo of firmware updates that anyone can install to jailbreak a handfull of widely sold printers to allow printing every drop of ink, and DIY refills. Let's be real, we're not a huge part of their market, so IMO the gains are to exist like wolves preying on the occasional sheep, rather than be wolves that try to evolve thumbs and force everyone to learn how to cook and go shopping in order to eat.
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Brother losing all competitive advantage they had via reputation. Doing a very big 180 and reversing the changes and commiting to no do t his BS is the only way to undo this
They must've hired some new analysts that said "hey, people are willing to accept less! Why are we doing more?"
It's up to the people to prove them wrong, but that usually doesn't happen :\
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If Brother starts playing that game, they will lose. Why bother buying their considerably more expensive printers over those of HP if they are going to be just as bad in the third party ink department?
You were the chosen one! 😭
They had two things going for them... Decent linux support and non-shitty DRM ink/toner
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In case anyone was thinking this applies only to inkjet printers: no, it ONLY seems to apply to laser printers -- the thing that Brother used to be known for. Where the article says "ink", they mean "toner". There is no ink in a laser printer.
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Buy an ecotank printer, they're more expensive initially but that's because they actually make you pay for the printer
Ecotank's use liquid ink that you fill in tanks instead of cartridges
There's no way they can check the ink on ecotank printers
These motherfuckers are actively making tech as a whole less secure by destroying any trust the public may have had in firmware updates.
Urgent security fixes are gonna go unpatched on a lot of shit because consumers are seeing more and more firmware or software updates actively making things WORSE.
Definitely true. I’ve been putting off an upgrade of my NAS because they have randomly decided to completely remove the video streaming software that came with it when I bought it. So infuriating.
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As much as I love the brand, this was just obviously going to happen. It always happens, it's the eventual outcome. All that is needed is one middle manager wanting to get an extra bones to come up with some short sighted idea that will make a little extra money in the short run and possibly bankrupt the company in the long term.
See Boeing, see Intel, see....
The only way to not have this happen is to get open source hardware. The open source eco system is amazing already but we need more focus on that, hardware. CPU's, Computers, printers, phones, everything
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Et tu, frater?
It's like every company that wasn't complete shit just suddenly decided to...go to complete shit.
If regulators don’t stop them from doing it, the CEO’s of publicly traded companies will get the boot from the board for not doing it. They have a fiduciary duty to be as shitty as humanly possible.
We need laws to stop this, but the politicians are all bribed not to.
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Thats's a shame, I always considered brother one of the better makers of paper manglers.
Et tu Brother?
I really wish we had open source 2D printers like we have open source 3D printers. That could solve a lot of the problems I think as we could have an open spec to allow people to do whatever they want. My Prusa doesn't care what brand filament I want to use, just as long it can drive it, melt it, and lay it down the way I need. Also why is it my 3D printers are more reliable than my 2D printers most days?
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I suggest whoever has old firmware files to upload them to the Internet Archive (if they allow those).
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And this is why I'll never connect my working printer to the internet.
Taking a USB stick to it to print is annoying, but fuck this shit.
They're all horrible companies
What's stopping you from connecting it to the local network but denying internet access? E.g. via a firewall rule or separate VLAN?
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Nice, Brother was the last one standing in my mind.
I'm glad I have an IoT vlan without internet access. Nothing is allowed to phone home here.
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anyone know about jailbreaking printers
It absolutely baffles me that there isn't a huge custom printer firmware movement.
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