IPP Mail Archive: Re: IPP> regarding "ipp:" (I spoke too soon...)

Re: IPP> regarding "ipp:" (I spoke too soon...)

Carl-Uno Manros (manros@cp10.es.xerox.com)
Thu, 2 Jul 1998 14:32:10 PDT

At 01:51 PM 7/2/98 PDT, Keith Moore wrote:
>> >HTTP is an application by itself. TCP/IP is not.
>> >IPP is trying to layer one application on top of another.
>>
>> In a sense you are right, but in effect IPP is sending MIME
>> packages over HTTP. This has been our stragegy for more than a year.
>> Is MIME over SMTP considered a separate application that needs
>> it's own scheme? It wasn't last time I checked.
>
>SMTP is not an application; end users don't use SMTP by itself.
>MIME is only the latest in a series of versions of the
>internet message format, which SMTP was tailor-made to carry.
>

Keith,

I still think your comparison does not hold up. In the same sense you could
view HTTP as a transport protocol for HTML pages, and more lately XML
pages. How about IFAX and various other application projects that have been
impertinent enough to re-use rather than re-invent?

Mind you, I have been involved in these kind of discussions for the last 20
years and believe that I know what I am talking about. I think the truth of
the matter is that the current Internet application protocols kind of
emerged without any architecture what-so-ever, and that maybe now the IESG
and IAB are starting to try to clean up the act. The IPP project just
happens to be a road kill in that process. Am I right?

Carl-Uno
Carl-Uno Manros
Principal Engineer - Advanced Printing Standards - Xerox Corporation
701 S. Aviation Blvd., El Segundo, CA, M/S: ESAE-231
Phone +1-310-333 8273, Fax +1-310-333 5514
Email: manros@cp10.es.xerox.com