Samsung ML1640

[Don Quixote de la Mancha]

Apple's Mac OS X provides driverless installs for both printers and
image input devices.

Of course the printers must have drivers from somewhere.  OS X bundles
that Gutenprint drivers, that are obtained from the Open Source
community.

I'm pretty sure that Apple either requires or maybe somehow convinces
the printer vendors to maintain their Gutenprint drivers.

 From time to time I manually update all my third-party software on OS
X; when I went to get the latest Epson driver, it said to run Software
Update from the Apple Menu in OS X.

So it can be done.

Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman haven't always been the best of
friends, but in general Apple has contributed a great deal to the Open
Source community.  I don't know because I never checked, but I imaging
that Apple contributes patches to the Gutenprint maintainers.

I don't have a clue how the image input is done.  That's for scanners
and digital cameras.  That part doesn't come from Linux and is quite
likely under Non-Disclosure Agreement, as many color image input
device vendors have all manner of trade secrets around color
management.

It's not so good for Open Source, but for the end-user like my Mom, I
bought her a nice digital camera for Christmas and It Just Worked with
iPhoto on her iMac.  There was no software to install.

Having to hunt down and install drivers for arcane hardware is a
Windows thing. There are lots of driver search databases, as well as
binary driver installer websites for Windows.  I've used them when
hunting for drivers for obscure hardware and they are a real PITA.

 Linux need not be that way.

-- 
Don Quixote de la Mancha
Dulcinea Technologies Corporation
Software of Elegance and Beauty
http://www.dulcineatech.com
quixote at dulcineatech.com