this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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Holy crap yes! I’ve been asking for an open source printer for years! From what I understand, a significant portion of the challenge is paper routing and alignment. I imagine Framework is one of the few companies out there with the knowledge and willingness to do it.
I want someone to succeed at this endeavor, but what exactly about framework makes them uniquely qualified to tackle the task you highlighted? Do they have other products that accomplish routing and alignment of paper or other materials?
Not specifically, but notice the “and”. A lot of other companies could probably do it, but just don’t really have an incentive to try and compete with the likes of Brother or HP. Framework has been the most effective open-source companies at finding the resources to put together something as complicated as a smartphone.
Most other open-source companies just don’t have that skillset of resource acquisition. And some of the few others that pop in my head are maybe RPi Foundation or Pine64 and similar, but they would likely make a super budget-friendly/education model that wouldn’t be practical for heavy office use.
If anyone can make a real competitor that can handle daily heavy use, I’m struggling to think of someone else. Let me know if there’s an obvious choice, though.
pine64 would make a printer with no fucking software and tell the community to do it
Honestly, I’d take it. Printers are one of those rare consumer tech things where the software is much simpler than the hardware.
I might not be a Kernel dev, but give me a protocol and I'll implement it.
I bought a PineTime specifically because of that
Yes, the actual printing part is stupid easy (with inkjets, not laser) and is simple to recreate at home
https://youtu.be/J1wz8S9rTI8