There are actually two Brother HL-5250DN printers options: one is
labeled HL-5250DN, the other is labeled HL-5250DN BR-Script3.  The
former is a foomatic-generated PPD, and has the line "*cupsManualCopies:
True", and therefore never asks the printer hardware to do the copies.
The latter lets the hardware do the copies (which I happen to think is
the preferable option).

With some experimentation I was in fact finally able to get the n*n bug
to be produced: by asking for collated copies.  So, here's a table
(sorry, the spacing will probably come out wrong):

cpdftocps   PPD               Collate    Copies
mine           foomatic        True        2
mine           foomatic        False       2
mine           BR-Script3     True         4
mine           BR-Script3     False       2
2ubuntu3    foomatic      True         2
2ubuntu3    foomatic      False        2
2ubuntu3    BR-Script3    True         2
2ubuntu3    BR-Script3    False        1

The basic problem is that when there is a chain of filters, each filter
has a shot at multiplying by the number of copies.  In principle these
scripts need to arrange things so that only one script makes a given
modification.  The scripts actually attempt to do this (some never
multiply copies, some look at the PPD and decide whether they'll do it
or let someone later do it).  But the logic for doing this is not in
shared code, so they can make different decisions.  And in practice
maybe it's hard to know where you are in the chain.  It's not clear to
me why something other than the last filter in the chain should be
creating multiple copies and/or collating.  That way all the logic would
be in one place, and to make 10 copies of something you would delay
pushing around a file that's 10 times as large as the original until the
last possible moment (if at all).

Clearly the simple reversion of the patch is the wrong thing (this was
clear from that start).  Getting it right will be complicated I think.
Presumably upstream doesn't have this problem (?), but I suspect there
was some logic to switching to this PDF filter backend in Debian/Ubuntu.

-- 
RELEASE FREEZE EXCEPTION: When requesting n copies, n*n or even n*n*n copies 
get printed
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/286048
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