IPP> Document-format attribute.. [ipp-mod] clarification

IPP> Document-format attribute.. [ipp-mod] clarification

harryl at us.ibm.com harryl at us.ibm.com
Tue Apr 4 15:23:41 EDT 2000




I'm OK with SHOULD rather than MUST.

However, I don't agree with Michael's recommendation for MUST (use default
or sniff) when the printer only supports sniff...

 "if a client knows the MIME type but the printer object only supports
application/octet-stream, then the printer object is just acting as a
"dumb" printer buffer and the client must only use the default document
format or pass application/octet-stream".

If Sniff is all you do (or if it's the default), then you always Sniff and
MIME becomes irrelevant.

Of course, as Ira points out, it's not likely that a printer would support
sniff only.

Harry Lewis
IBM Printing Systems




"Manros, Carl-Uno B" <cmanros at cp10.es.xerox.com>
03/30/00 03:05 PM


        To:     Michael Sweet <mike at easysw.com>, "McDonald, Ira"
<imcdonald at sharplabs.com>
        cc:     Harry Lewis/Boulder/IBM at IBMUS, "Hastings, Tom N"
<hastings at cp10.es.xerox.com>, anthony.porter at computer.org, ipp at pwg.org,
venky at teil.soft.net
        Subject:        RE: IPP> Document-format attribute.. [ipp-mod]
clarification


All,

I agree with Michael that we ought to use SHOULD instead of MUST if we
want this to be an editorial change; using MUST seems to require a new
WG Last Call.

Carl-Uno

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Sweet [mailto:mike at easysw.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 8:07 AM
To: McDonald, Ira
Cc: 'harryl at us.ibm.com'; Hastings, Tom N; anthony.porter at computer.org;
ipp at pwg.org; venky at teil.soft.net
Subject: Re: IPP> Document-format attribute.. [ipp-mod] clarification


"McDonald, Ira" wrote:
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I agree with Harry that we should further revise this paragraph
> to indicate that a client MUST specify a particular document
> format when known and MUST NOT use 'application/octet-stream'
> instead.

Um, that probably won't work too well, since many printer-specific
data streams do not have registered MIME types (e.g. Canon, ALPS,
EPSON, Lexmark, etc.), and a generic print server (e.g. JetDirect,
Axis print server, etc.) probably won't know enough to be able to
enumerate the supported MIME types for the actual device.

SHOULD and SHOULD NOT are probably more appropriate if we are
trying to "encourage" rather than "enforce".

Also, the application/octet-stream information should probably be
updated to reflect a special case for printer objects that list
only application/octet-stream for document-format-supported.
That is, if a client knows the MIME type but the printer object
only supports application/octet-stream, then the printer object
is just acting as a "dumb" printer buffer and the client must
only use the default document format or pass
application/octet-stream.

--
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products                  mike at easysw.com
Printing Software for UNIX                       http://www.easysw.com






More information about the Ipp mailing list