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Hi,
attached is the draft for a PWG press release to be discussed in our phone
conference next Wednesday.
Scott Isaacson, Don Wright and myself have been involved in the drafting.
I think we are still a bit weak on the impact section, including the lack
of suitable references from people outside the group. We should work on
that between now and the phone conference.
Carl-Uno
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Press Release Draft
Version 1.02
April 9, 1997
Major Players Unite to Deliver Internet Printing Standard
IETF Creates an Internet Printing Protocol Working Group to Deliver
New Open Standard
Place and Time: The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)
has chartered a new Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) Working
Group within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)to deliver an open
standard for Internet printing. The new group will define a an
industry-standard allowing end users to submit and control print jobs over
the Internet and across enterprise intranets. Companies participating in this
effort include Adobe, Canon, Dataproducts, Dazel, Digital, Hewlett-Packard,
IBM, Intel, Kyocera, Lexmark, Microsoft, Netscape, Novell, QMS, Ricoh, Sharp,
Sun, Tektronix and Xerox.
Currently, there is no standard for Internet print job submission. Several
protocols are in use today, each with limited applicability and none
ubiquitous. Therefore, printer vendors must support a number of different
protocols and protocol variants. There is a need for a protocol which can
cover the most common requirements for printing on the Internet. These are:
- for a user to find out about a printer's capabilities
- for a user to submit print jobs to a printer
- for a user to find out the status of a printer or a print job
- for a user to cancel a previously submitted job
The Internet Printing Protocol is a client/server type protocol which will
allow the server be either a separate print server or a printer with
embedded networking and server capabilities. The focus of this effort is
optimized for printers, but it could also be applied to other output devices.
The working group will also define a set of directory attributes that can be
used to ease finding printers on the network.
History of IPP
In the summer of 1996, Novell approached a number of companies and found
a significant number of vendors interested in a printing protocol project for
the Internet based on a Lightweight Document Printing Application (LDPA).
In a parallel effort, IBM was working on Internet printing using Web
technology, under the name of HyperText Printing Protocol (HTPP). Simultaneously,
Microsoft, HP and Lexmark were working on a solution for a new generation of
Internet print services for Windows NT. QMS, Adobe, Sharp and Tektronix had
also announced products and prototyping technologies in the same vain.
After several initial discussions, the Printer Working Group (PWG), a group of
experts with representation from printer and print server vendors, started the IPP
project in November 1996. The PWG earlier developed the SNMP Printer MIB and is
currently working on a Job Monitoring MIB.
Representatives from Adobe, IBM, Lexmark, Novell, Sun, and Xerox act as chairs,
authors, and editors for the IPP project.
A birds-of-a-feather (BOF) session for IPP was held at the December 1996 meeting
of the IETF which confirmed widespread interest in developing a printing
protocol for the Internet. On March 6, 1997 the IESG officially chartered
the new working group, which has already submitted Internet-Drafts on
model and semantics, directory schema, security, protocol encodings,
and transport mappings.
The first formal meeting of the IPP working group was held on Tuesday
April 8th at the 38th IETF meeting in Memphis, TN. It is expected that the
working group will submit a series of IPP Request For Comment (RFC) documents
to the IESG later this year for ratification as Proposed Standards.
Impact
Quotes from:
Large Corps
Customers
Service Bureaus
Vendors
Systems
IPP can eliminate the need for faxing documents by providing a
cost-effective and reliable way to print documents such as invoices,
schedules and forms directly to remote printers. Instead of the costly and
arduous process of printing, then faxing documents to branch offices,
hotels and other remote locations, users will be able to print documents
directly to printers anywhere on the Internet reliably and quickly, using
common Internet connections.
Organizations can let their employees print to printers anywhere within
their organization, independent of locations, and can as easily sent print
jobs to customers, partners etc. without the need to use e-mail or other
distribution methods before documents are printed.
How to get involved
You can get information and participate over the Internet in the
following ways:
General Discussion DL: ipp at pwg.org
To Subscribe to the DL: ipp-request at pwg.org
Archive: ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/ipp/
Web-site: http://www.pwg.org/ipp
About IETF
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large international
community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers
concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth
operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual. The actual
technical work of the IETF is done in its working groups, which are
organized by topic into several areas (e.g. routing, network management,
security, etc.). Further information about the IETF can be accessed on
the World Wide Web at http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/home.html.
###
Press Inquiries:
PWG Chair: Don Wright, Lexmark International, 606-232-4808
IPP Chairs: Carl-Uno Manros, Xerox Corporation, 310-333-8273
Steve Zilles, Adobe Inc., 408-536-4766
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Carl-Uno Manros
Principal Engineer - Advanced Printing Standards - Xerox Corporation
701 S. Aviation Blvd., El Segundo, CA, M/S: ESAE-231
Phone +1-310-333 8273, Fax +1-310-333 5514
Email: manros at cp10.es.xerox.com
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