Chuck,
I must say (in advance) that I am not "pouncing" on you with my
comments below. ;-)
> Overall I found the pre-bakeoff useful. It was good to see that all
> these printers could be managed using the printer-MIB. I believe that
> this MIB could be used by an Independent Software Developer to
> implement a package or packages that could handle all these printers.
As I recanted in an earlier statement today, perhaps my use of the word
"failure" was a bit too harsh. I just wish it would have been more
successful...and, quite honestly, I expected it to be more successful.
However, your above summary of the event is precisely what I had claimed
did NOT happen at the bake-off, namely:
> It was good to see that all these printers could be managed using
> the printer MIB.
Did I miss something at the bake-off? (Was I out of the room AGAIN? ;-)
What applications did you see where the printers could all be managed
in the same fashion? (I know my company's SENSE-based product did
portray such a "happy" situation.)
You also state:
> I believe that this MIB could be used by an Independent Software
> Developer to implement a package or packages that could handle all
> these printers.
I will fully acknowledge that based on the very limited amount of
testing by the group, we may not be that far away from a reasonable
level of conformance across the products tested. However, I believe it
to be a bit premature to make a statement that "the MIB is now ready" for
ISV implementation...unless, of course, said ISVs are willing to
develop quite a bit of special-case code to handle the variations seen
at the bake-off.
Chuck, I feel compelled to respond like this due to the fact that
your statement appears to be just the kind of thing a marketing
organization might pick up and quote someplace. I don't think
that would be appropriate, at least not at this time.
I wish it were different, believe me!
> If there is another bake-off I would like to see more work done up
> front to define the testing that is going to be done and the report
> that going to be filled. I appreciate Genoa testing the hr variables
> but I would have liked to see a more complete test of the printer-MIB
> done.
Amen to that, Chuck! I also get the feeling that since I've been doing
the bulk of the complaining about the mis-implementations, then I'll be
expected to be a "significant contributor" in the development of a more
detailed test suite. (And just when I thought I could take a vacation
this month... :-(
...jay