IPP> Common concerns regarding the SWP proposal

IPP> Common concerns regarding the SWP proposal

JK Martin jkm at underscore.com
Fri Jun 6 22:28:44 EDT 1997


Tom,


Some comments on your comments:


> >The concerns I have heard from multiple IPP participants include the
> >following (in no particular order):
> >
> >  1. Does not support multiple documents
> >
> >  2. Does not support Print-by-Reference
> >
> >  3. Does not support job status queries
> >
> >  4. Does not support job cancellation by the requesting user
> 
> No problem with not having any of the above in the lowest level (or in SWP).
> You don't get any of the above with current Windows printing and it hasn't
> cause customers to not use Windows.  As Babak and Keith said, SWP is
> only the first step which takes the current Windows printing paradigm
> and puts it on the Internet.


This is fine for Windows.  (I guess.)  But what about other environments?
(I can just hear Don Wright's all-too-frequent exclamation now...
     "Unix is a niche market, so don't bother with it!")


IPP is not just for Windows.  However some folks seem to contend that
Windows is the only environment worth satisfying in the IPP effort.


By the way, are you saying that a Windows user has no way to observe
the current status of his/her submitted job?  Nor that the user is able
to cancel a previously submitted job?  I find this a bit hard to believe.




> >  5. Uses binary-encoded data for simple information normally encoded
> >     in text for HTTP-related transactions
> 
> This decision is perhaps not the best, but its not a show stopper.
> Lets not use it as a "wedge" issue to abandon the agreements in San Diego.


And let's not say these kinds to put the wrong spin on stated concerns.


There are those in the IPP group who believe the group did not have
sufficient time to fully evaluate SWP in San Diego, given the document
was not published until a couple of days before the meeting.


It's should come as no surprise, then, that once we started comparing
the SWP proposal against the IPP charter, it fell quite a bit short.




> Maybe I'm naive, but I think that Microsoft will support full IPP in their
> follow on release.  Its just a matter of timing.  Had we had IPP all done
> and the NT 5.0 development group had the resources, they would have put
> full IPP into NT 5.0.  Basically, the NT strategy is to keep adding 
> functionality.  Why do you think that Microsoft would stop with SWP?


Ummm... Because they don't want to expose anymore of their printing
system for external augmentation by other vendors?  (Sorry, but was
that a trick question?)


If Microsoft and HP had taken the time to discuss their ideas and
objections on the IPP list all along, we--and they--would have had more
time to develop a singular conformance level to the betterment of all.


Why didn't Microsoft and HP participate in the open forum for this
standards effort, anyway?  In most working groups, the people who
make a particular proposal are usually the ones to defend it, yet
we have heard nothing from either the Microsoft nor HP camp.




> Any system that can't cancel a job is not going to be viable in the market
> place very long.  So Microsoft will be forced into doing more in the
> future by their customer base (and IPP).


Hmmm...  I thought you said Windows users can't cancel print jobs today?




> I look at SWP as being half full, not half empty.  SWP makes IPP more real,
> rather than detracting from IPP.


SWP makes IPP more real???  (Sorry, a rhetorical question, at best)




> Carl-Uno made the suggestion that maybe SWP could be a separate informational
> RFC (from Microsoft or from the PWG, TBD), which is a subset of IPP.
> Then IPP could avoid having two conformance levels, if we cannot agree
> to have two conformance levels.


Anyone can publish an I-D at anytime (with some constraints now, I guess).


But calling SWP an "I-D" so as to avoid a two-level conformance situation
is just a thinly disguised veneer of a second conformance level, IMHO.


	...jay



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