Sorry, the report has taken so long. It's quite short. I've posted it at
ftp://ftp.pwg.org/export/home/ftp/pub/pwg/fin/minutes/pfx-0199.txt as well
as included below.
******
Report of the PWG standard Printer-Interface meeting
January 21, 1999
The meeting was not as well attended as anticipated. There were early
indications that appx.30 people would participate in the January meeting.
It is possible that an analogous effort occurring within the Finishing
industry and/or confusion related to project scope (inline vs. standalone
or networked finishers, cutsheet vs. continuous forms pre and post
processing) may have confused and detracted from this meeting.
Attendees:
Raymond Balmes - Oce
Ron Bergman - Dataproducts
Tom Hastings - Xerox
Jan Idomir - HP
Harry Lewis - IBM
Concepts related to a standard Printer-Finisher interface were discussed
and reviewed for the 4th session in the PWG. In general, a standard
interface would alleviate Finisher vendors from having to develop custom
interfaces to their equipment for every printer vendor. Printer vendors
would be alleviated from architecting and maintaining private interfaces
and would be able to produce Finishers based on finishing function rather
than interface compliance. Overall product development cycles would be
shortened. In addition, a standard Printer-Finisher interface would
address:
1. Finisher "plug-and-play"
2. Automatic population of the Finisher MIB attributes
3. Facilitating automatic driver configuration in bi-di environments.
While the PWG remains interested in the concept of a standard
Printer-Finisher interface, we do not have the expertise to drive this
topic. In 4 consecutive (incubation) sessions, the topic has failed to
product a charter, requirements proposal or model document.
The PWG is suspending this topic and recommending someone from the
Finishing Industry submit a draft charter and requirements document
prior to scheduling any more meetings. Upon receiving an acceptable
charter, requirements and model proposal, the PWG will gladly schedule a
meeting within the following 6-week period.
The PWG encourages continued discussion regarding the standard
Printer-Finisher interface and will provide the "fin at pwg.org" e-mail
reflector (with sub topic PFX) for such discussion. Anyone interested in
furthering or discussion this topic is encouraged to join this mailing
list by sending e-mail to majordomo at pwg.org with the words "Subscribe FIN"
in the body.
A web link category for Finishing will be added to the PWG web site at
www.pwg.org. This category will contain a pointer to the Finisher MIB as
well as any standard Printer-Finisher submissions that may be received in
the future.
Harry Lewis - IBM Printing Systems
harryl at us.ibm.com