Ira, I don't debate the spirit of the IESG interop testing, or your spirit
in pointing this out. However, there would appear to be an endless loop in
the pragmatics of the situation if we follow as strict an interpretation as
you suggest. Develop standard, test interoperability, modify based on
knowledge gained, test, modify, test, etc. I think anyone would agree that,
at some point in the process, the final modifications would be minor enough
that they need not be re-tested prior to publication. We feel we reached
this stage following the first test. Is there some RFC that claims this is
not possible?
More important, are you (of anyone of our interested developers) aware or
suspicious of any problems lurking in changes made?
Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems
harryl at us.ibm.com
Ira McDonald <imcdonal at sdsp.mc.xerox.com> on 01/28/99 04:32:14 PM
To: lpyoung at lexmark.com, pmp at pwg.org
cc: (bcc: Harry Lewis/Boulder/IBM)
Subject: Re: PMP> Latest Printer MIB internet draft
Hi Lloyd,
Not to belabor a point, remember that promotion of any IETF
work to Draft Standard level (from Proposed Standard) requires
that the IESG have available for their inspection (and publicly
posted on the IETF FTP/Web server at '[ftp|www].ietf.org')
an interoperability report demonstrating at least two
independent implementations (sharing no common code)
which implement EVERY object defined in the relevant RFC
(for MIBs) or EVERY feature defined (for a protocol).
No vendor has publicly announced (to my knowledge) a
complete implementation of every optional and mandatory
object in the Printer MIB v2. Since the Printer MIB v2
adds new objects over the original content of RFC 1759,
the highest level that such a new RFC could legally
be published at (within calendar 1999) is Proposed
Standard.
If any vendors have actually implemented the current
text of Printer MIB v2, please make announce your
implementation on this list.
Cheers,
- Ira McDonald (outside consultant at Xerox)
High North Inc