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known_bugs_from_brother.md

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Known bugs from Brother™

Drivers provided by Brother are plenty of bugs.

Notice: statistics are given for standard printers drivers, not pcfaxes nor labelers. It gives an idea of the problem.

Useless quotes

97 cupswrapper have useless quotes like that line in cupswrapperdcp373cw:

printer_model=""dcp373cw""

Echoed code

Cupswrappers writes ppd or filters with heredoc or echo, sometimes some lines of the cupswrapper (not the generated ppd or filter) are mistakenly echoed:

For example, you can see in cupswrapperMFC3820CN-1.0.0 the echo 'rm -f /u… code, fortunately, another line was written to reenable this command:

set  brotherlpdwrapper=/usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperMFC3820CN
rm -f  $brotherlpdwrapper
echo 'rm -f /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapperMFC3820CN'
echo  '#! /bin/csh'  >>  $brotherlpdwrapper
echo  '#'  >>  $brotherlpdwrapper

Some cupswrappers was written in C Shell, another in Bourne Shell, but we can see Bourne Shell cupswrapper were ported from C Shell cupswrappers since this bug remains in some Bourn Shell cupswrappers like the cupswrappermfc990cw one:

rm -f  $brotherlpdwrapper
#echo 'rm -f /usr/lib/cups/filter/brlpdwrapper${printer_model}'

cat <<!ENDOFWFILTER! >$brotherlpdwrapper
#! /bin/sh
#

124 cupswrappers have this bug.

Useless code

The cupswrappermfc5860cn has this useless structure:

printer_model="mfc5860cn"
cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE1 >$ppd_file_name
…
FPPDFILE1

if [ $printer_model = "mfc5860cn" ]; then
cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE_2 >>$ppd_file_name
…
ENDOFPPDFILE_2

cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE_END >>$ppd_file_name
…
ENDOFPPDFILE_END

30 other cupswrappers do this test with another value of printer_model variable, so this code is never executed by those 30 other cupswrappers.

For example, the cupswrappermfc660cn contain this useless code:

printer_model="mfc660cn"
cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE1 >$ppd_file_name
…
FPPDFILE1

if [ $printer_model = "mfc5860cn" ]; then
cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE_2 >>$ppd_file_name
…
ENDOFPPDFILE_2

cat <<ENDOFPPDFILE_END >>$ppd_file_name
…
ENDOFPPDFILE_END

Bad shebang

The cupswrappermfc6890cdw cupswrapper writted in Bourne Shell has this strange shebang:

# !/usr/bin

A shee-space-bang with a directory as interpreter!

Reminiscence

169 Bourne Shell cupswrappers has bits from previous C Shell like that (cupswrapperMFC9660-1.0.2):

cat <<!ENDOFWFILTER! >$brotherlpdwrapper
#! /bin/sh
#
# Brother Print filter  >>  $brotherlpdwrapper

or that (cupswrapperSetup_mfc9840cdw):

cat <<!ENDOFWFILTER! >$tmp_filter
#! /bin/sh
#
# Brother Print filter  >>

Note the trailing >> from a previous echo line, in some case the name of the generated file is printed inside the generated file.

Version discordance

For example, the HL2240 printer driver install a file brcupsconfig4 (/usr/local/Brother/Printer/HL2240/cupswrapper/brcupsconfig4), but the source package for this driver provide an source for the binary brcupsconfig3 (brhl2240cups_src-2.0.4-2/brcupsconfig3/brcupsconfig.c). There is 8 different brcupsconfig binary files and 4 brcupsconfig4 binary files inside the archives, so is can be more binary than sources. The various brcupsconfig files are covered by GPLv2 license, if the source is not available, there may be a GPL violation, we don't know.

Deprecated usage

Many printer drivers (like the hl4150cdnlpr-1.1.1-5.i386.deb one) write the printer name to a file named /etc/printcap. In addition to causing cohabitation issues, the usage of /etc/printcap is deprecated.

Bad archive

Many source tarballs (tar.gz format) have "lone zero block" problems, perhaps some are broken.

Duplication

Drivers are mainly duplication of others, duplicating bugs or things that not have meaning. Perhaps 80% of code is redundant.