The IETF has a somewhat different composition than the current IPP group.
Different sets of people will naturally identify different needs.
For those who attended the IPP BOF at the last IETF, the IETF's
concern over inventing a new protocol instead of adapting lpr should not
be surprising. Several IETF participants have expressed similar concerns
to me personally. I've tried to convince those people that lpr is
basically broken and non-extensible, but some of them are still concerned
about compatibility. Hence the charter requirement.
> Unanimously, participants have agreed that there will be mapping code
> from IPP to any or all of these existing implementations (LPR in its MANY
> forms included), but that there is no need to standardize on it. As we
> can see from some of the participants, some will implment this IPP to LPR
> mapping code and then make it available as reference source code for
> any other vendor that might want to take it and tweak it for their
> implementation. This will happen, but it does not need to be a standard.
lpr is of course not the only protocol for which compatibility is
desirable, nor is it necessarily the most important one overall;
it's just one particular need that several IETF people identified.
The mapping need not be a standard (it can be an Informational document)
but it does need to be documented. Documents describing mappings
to other protocols would also be welcome, and it would be wonderful
to have example source code to accompany that documentation.
> In other words, the federal government is imposing an unworkable
> mandate on the states, each of which knows best how to solve this
> problem without the "helpful" input from the feds.
I assume you meant this as analogy rather than an accusation.
I think it's fair to say that there is suspicion both on the
part of some members of IPP to IETF, and of some members of IETF
toward IPP. The best way to address this problem is to get the
two groups working together.
> However, it would be important for someone who is highly motivated
> (because of existing business in legacy LPR systems) to take a look at
> the IPP model and subsequent protocol to insure that this LPR mapping
> can be done. If there are any real concerns, voice them now. I have
> not heard major issues to date.
Nor do I think there are any. It's just a matter of documenting
how it is done.
Keith