I have put the development version of the plugin (release 3.1.0) in
SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net).  This is a service provided by
VA Linux Systems to the open source community for hosting development
projects, among other things.  I've decided to do this for the
following reasons:

1) SourceForge provides a complete hosting solution, including disk
   space, shell accounts, CVS service, mailing lists, web sites, and
   much more that I'm only just beginning to explore.  VA seems
   committed to this service, and they are backing it with substantial
   hardware and people resources.

2) I want to decouple the Print plugin development from Gimp
   development as a whole.  Currently there is a stable branch (3.0)
   that will have occasional bug fixes and possibly minor enhancements
   that do not impact stability.  I'm looking forward to a great 3.2
   release, but that will require a fair bit of development, and I
   want to make it available to the widest possible audience without
   destabilizing the version in the Gimp (I think things will get very
   unstable for a while with support for some of the newer printers).

   If we get enough stable code in 3.1, we might back port it to 3.0
   for inclusion into the Gimp.

3) SourceForge has a large development community of its own, and
   hopefully we can draw upon the efforts of a broader community.

4) The whole issue of high quality printing in Linux (and Unix in
   general) seems to be a real hash right now.  Ghostscript lacks a
   lot of stuff that's required (such as two-way communication between
   the printer and the driver, and between the driver and the
   application).  CUPS looks more promising technically, if the
   mindshare develops.  I think that the Print plugin as any more than
   a glue layer and UI should eventually go away altogether.  This is
   better addressed in an environment like SourceForge than within the
   Gimp alone.  The Gimp has a lot to contribute in this area -- it's
   a sophisticated graphical application with demanding output
   requirements -- but a lot of this stuff needs to happen at a lower
   level.

I'd like to invite everyone here to check out SourceForge, and
register for an account.  There are two mailing lists,
gimp-print-devel and gimp-print-announce.

-- 
Robert Krawitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton

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