Ben, Sandra, see my comments below.
Abdallah Qaisi
Apple Computer
>Item Subject: UPD> re-scope of UPDF
> I don't see any much overlap between IPP and UPDF. UPDF is the
> description of the printer, and is (should be?) transport independent.
> As far as I know, we haven't made IPP a required component of UPDF.
>> I agree that we need to re-clarify. IPP is capable of retreiving
> facts about the printer, but UPDF expresses not only the facts, but
> how they relate to one another.
>> If we steer toward Linux and Unix, then we need to drop the "U" from
> the comittee name,
"U" can stand for Unix too;) Dropping it causes a clash with Adobe PDF.
> as it will no longer be universal, and will be of a
> much more limited interest to me.
>> Regards,
> Ben B
>>>______________________________ Reply Separator
>_________________________________
>Subject: UPD> re-scope of UPDF
>Author: sandram-at-boi (sandram at boi.hp.com) at HP-Vancouver,shargw1
>Date: 8/12/99 10:32 AM
>>>Hi,
> Even though the UPDF spec is coming along - the work is not as
>focused
>as it could be. I believe there are a couple of reasons for this. One
>being ther
>e
>sheer size of the task. We did an excellent job dividing the job into
>sections -
>>UI, Localization, etc - but I haven't done a very good job keeping the work
>focused on a specific area.
> Another issue has been the usefulness of the project itself. Is
>UPDF really needed when IPP can retrieve some of the info from
>the printer? Can IPP and UPDF complement each other or is there maybe
>too much overlap?
>> There also has been some thought about steering UPDF towards
>a Linux (and other Unix flavors) printing solution and not really a
>"Universal"
>solution. What do
>people think about that?
>>
If UPDF is limited to Unix, how is it better than today's solution - PPD?
I understand that one of the goals for UPDF is to support both
Postscript and non-Postscript printers. But while PPD handles PS only,
it does it nicely on all platforms not just Unix.
My other thought: Is non-Postscript printing on Unix the biggest problem
that UPDF is aiming to solve or the easiest problem to solve? If it's
the biggest problem, then you may be heading in the right direction as
long as you promise adding more platforms later. If on the other hand,
you are doing it just for the sake of scoping down the project then I
disagree with the direction.
Finally, as you know, Apple's Mac OS X at the low level is Unix based so
there may be ways we can support your new direction but I cannot say for
sure until I see a better definition of the new UPDF proposal. At
minimum, the XML portion of a UPDF file could easily be handled on OS X
since the new OS already handles XML parsing at the system level. I'm
not sure about the optional code modules (the UI and rendering plugins) -
whether these binaries will be compatible or not.
These are my thoughts at this time. Sorry for not being able to
contribute much to this project. But I'm still watching and tracking it
with interest.
Thanks.
Abdallah
>> Chuck sent out the DTD vs Schema link. This is something to look
>at. Als
>o
>please check out the UIML and XUL documents for User Interface
>specification in
>UPDF.
>>thanks,
>Sandra
>>------------------------
>Sandra Matts
>Hewlett-Packard
>Engineer Scientist
>sandram at boi.hp.com>(208) 396-4755 phone
>(208) 396-5161 fax
>