IPP Mail Archive: IPP> Re: New IPP Scheme

IPP> Re: New IPP Scheme

don@lexmark.com
Sun, 12 Jul 1998 17:13:56 -0400

>> It seems to me there are few if any clear, overwhelming technical merits
on
>> either side of the proposals. The printing community is firm on how it
>> believes customers and users will perceive and use IPP and believes
"ipp:"
>> is not the right approach. Since other than encoded within the
>> application/ipp body, "ipp:" is never on the wire, there is no real
>> difference from the network's infrastructure
>
>That's not true. ipp: would appear "on the wire" in all sorts of
>places -- in HTML documents, LDAP responses, ACAP responses, etc. --
>any time someone needs to refer to a printer.
>
>Keith

Yes, but in all these cases, a human being does not see this raw material.
It is technically irrelevant whether the responses say "ipp:", "http:", or
anything else for that matter. My argue stands, the right people to deal
with the user's perception are the people shipping the products and they
have reach consensus that "ipp:" is the wrong answer.

One of the major scenarios this group continues to discuss is what does the
naive person do with a URL received from another individual? It is a
common belief among those of us developing products that they will stick
them in a browser and see what happens. With "ipp:", nothing will happen
except the browser complaining. We firmly believe that well designed IPP
servers when presented with a GET operation at its HTTP URL will return
something of significance and use to the person trying it out.
Specifically, we expect the server to return an HTML page that will help
the user "bootstrap" themselves into being able to print to that printer.
That scenario is completely broken with the "ipp:" scheme. If we don't do
our work to enable IPP to work for those who have only minimal experience
then we have done no one (especially ourselves) a favor.

**********************************************
* Don Wright don@lexmark.com *
* Product Manager, Strategic Alliances *
* Lexmark International *
* 740 New Circle Rd *
* Lexington, Ky 40550 *
* 606-232-4808 (phone) 606-232-6740 (fax) *
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