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Comment by nebula8804 | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like Canon is really bad in supporting driver changes in subsequent OS releases. I recall diagnosing the same issue with a colleagues Mac over 10 years ago. She updated the OS and the printer she bought with the computer 3 OS'es ago stopped working. Turns out something with how Printers were handled changed and Canon refused to release updated drivers for a discontinued machine. I recall that some third party hobbyist had developed a method to make the printer work but it took hours to try and get it working until we just gave up....also her dog accidentally yanked on the printer cord and it went flying off the table. That was also motivation to stop trying. I am more inclined to blame Canon than Apple here.

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Why? Windows has been the one updating itself making sure to not break backwards printer support, not the other way around.

You can still use printers from the 90's on modern Windows, meanwhile MacOS seems to break support for recent printers between minor updates.

It's not like they're a cash-strapped start-up, if Microsoft can afford to invest in maintaining backwards compatibility, so can Apple.

Sounds like Apple is just lazy and doesn't care what it breaks treating their desktop OS like their mobile OS where app devs need to keep pace with them, and fans will die on the hill defending them.

tbf MS is not the "normal" in the aspect. They are pretty much the backwwrds-compatibility kings.

And at a significant cost at that.

Windows has become a hodgepodge of code bases from a variety of time periods and philosophies, some of which leans on some ancient stuff that can’t be touched.

Hell, they had to skip Windows 9, just to prevent breaking 95/98 software from braking.

The average SW engineer here in HN wouldn’t know how fast they’d get to a keyboard to complain if they were to find a codebase like that at their job.

That’s not to say it’s necessarily bad, even if it can be cumbersome, it’s just to highlight the cost of maintaining that compatibility and a difference in philosophy.

But nobody is expecting 30 years of backwards compatibility. Just keeping old printer drivers working. It's not like printers are devices we need all too much anymore. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that users will have discontinued printers at home.

Kinda similar to Rosetta 1 and 32 bit binaries on x86. I get their motivation but killing Rosetta 1 basically meant that all old games that came out in the PPC era couldn't be played anymore and killing of 32 bit binaries made the Apple logo in Steam useless. It's not like people expect that this works like how early win32 application still work on Windows. They could totally make the user jump through a bunch of hoops to get support for their old applications. But they didn't.

It seems like Apple just prefers that companies release software that they will actually maintain, instead of relying on Apple/Microsoft to bend over backwards to maintain backwards compatibility from now until the end of time.

>It seems like Apple just prefers that companies release software that they will actually maintain

Maybe companies prefer their way, instead of what Apple imposes on them. After all, not all companies are tech companies, who can afford large teams of expensive devs to keep updating their SW. For non-tech companies, the less dev work they have to invest in SW, the better, as that frees up resources for their main business activity.

I for one if I'm the customer and the one spending the money I definitely want to be in charge, not be at the mercy of the manufacturer of product I spend money on to dictate how I should run my business, that I should invest more effort in keeping up with them.

Move fast and break things at the pace of their vendor, is not what most users and companies expect from their products and services.

They shouldn't advertise Mac support then. Canon specifically put a Mac logo on their boxes and uses that in their advertisements.

These printer companies could also open source their drivers after a number of years. The amount of landfill printers due to driver support is kinda sad. Just tossed my old cannon that had a perfectly good scanner due to driver support and the “need” for ink for the scanner to work. Booo!

100%. Require that software be released at the end of the support lifecycle for all licensed customers to continue their use-case, and watch support lifecycles magically telescope outwards.

It would require modification to copyright law in certain aspects (requiring “pass-through licensing” so to speak) and there’s utterly no will to tackle this in the US.

But those sorts of issues are already problematic for, eg, music licensing for games/shows/etc. Some of these types of hyper-limited, time-gated, non-product-ownership-following licensing agreements need to just be outlawed as unconscionable when they’re gating hardware that ends up in landfills or cutting off the public’s access to cultural touchstones. Or just shorten copyright significantly in general.

Canon doesn't develop MacOS. They advertise support for the version of MAcOS that existed when they launched the printer. If MacOS decides to break compatibility over time, it's not their fault. If they're not selling the printer today, they can't also provide up to date support for the OS of today. It's up to the OS developer to ensure a stable API for printers.

“Break compatibility” can cover a wide range of things, however, and that’s not always so clear cut. For example, if they were relying on lax permissions or a private interface then it’s a question of how much effort the OS vendor should spend on something they never promised would work.

Imagine the IP camera vendors saying this :skull:

“What can you possibly be complaining about!? It was secure when we released it! Maybe you should just buy a new one with less vulnerabilities!”

EU isn’t wrong that people have an intuitive sense that appliances like printers should have a worthwhile lifecycle and for some classes of devices this lifecycle should be quite long. 10 years really isn’t unreasonable.

Also, just like everyone has to support usb-c charging regardless of whatever other proprietary alternative they design… vendors should have to support a couple generic standards (postscript/Ghostscript and CUPS) that relieve a lot of the ongoing maintenance. There are very few/no valid reasons you couldn’t implement cups/postscript if you really want.

Hang on, let's pump our brakes and take a quick peek at the calendar. The comment thread we're in was talking about the Canon D530 which was released in 2012, which supposedly broke in MacOS Monterey released in 2021. It's a stretch to call 9 years "moving fast and breaking things".

Hold on there buckaroo. Having a 9 year old printer at home is no big deal as consumers don't usually upgrade their printers if they still work and compatible ink cartridges are still available. My parents are still running a 20+ year old Canon, because it's easy to refill cheaply.

And things don't exist in a vacuum but in comparison to others. To wit, does that Canon printer from 2012 work in present day versions of Windows and Linux? If yes, then why is MacOS the odd one out here?

So what's stopping Apple from providing the same level of reliable printer support as Microsoft and Linux? It sure as hell aint lack of money.

I don't work at Apple nor do I have much more insight into their philosophy than you, so I can only refer you to my previous speculation:

> It seems like Apple just prefers that companies release software that they will actually maintain

What has changed since 2012 in the document printing space that would make that perfectly good machine obsolete? Machines don’t grow on trees, they are created at terrible environmental cost.

> What has changed since 2012 in the document printing space that would make that perfectly good machine obsolete?

I couldn't tell you to be honest, I don't even have a printer.

Probably security vulnerabilities necessitating a change in the driver model.

Windows definitely does break backwards-compatibility of printer drivers. My parents had to use a Windows XP VM to print on their Canon printer for a long time before giving in and buying a new printer.

How on earth is it Canon's fault when Apple releases a breaking change?

Well for starters Canon installers do strict version checks. And they often stop updating their drivers, especially for older printers. I got very good about editing the installer files to either add newer versions of macOS or to just remove the version checks. The drivers always worked after I did so. Thats just one of the continual issues with them and their software that caused me to finally ditch them. HP drivers may be bloated, but they work!

Regardless of Canon, there is no reason to change drivers between macOSX OS releases. Aren't all releases using cups?

Can confirm - Canon is horrible at updating their drivers; one of the reasons I no longer own, use or recommend any of their printers. Which is a shame since I really liked their laser printers :/

> Turns out something with how Printers were handled changed

What about backwards compatibility?

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