There was a discussion on the morning of 8/29 at the PWG meeting in
San Diego about "Internet Printing"
Scott Isaacson led a discussion that identified several areas that are
included under the very large and very vague umbrella of "Internet
Printing". The industry is moving fast with new products and new ideas.
Some of the major issues and sub-areas identified are:
- W3C conference in April 96 on High Quality Printing on the WEB: The
topics seemed to cover fonts, color spaces, need for printing, paperless
society, etc.
- WEB based Printer Management: Some vendors have products or
announced products that support browser-based management and
configuration. The WBEM effort is focused on using HTML/HTTP/HMML
to provide Web Page views of management utilities and devices on top of
existing management tools and protocols (providing a Web page view of
printer MIBs??).
- Finding/Locating/Identifying printers
- Application printing
- Printing to URLs
- Security: How to leverage authentication, access control, and
encryption services
- Other Related Standards/Working Groups:
1. TR29 Fax
2. Potential IETF working group (Dec 1996) on printing via e-mail
MIME types
3. TPC.INT prototypes
- Changing infrastucture based on Internet/Intranet explosion
1. Fax works since "everyone has a phone"
2. Is internet printing a reality since now "everyone has a browser"
- Any effort applied in this area must:
1. Try to harmonize with other efforts
2. Architect and Layer correctly to leverage exising standards and
avoid re-inventing
- For enabling commerce:
security, accounting, contract negotiation, quality of service