[Desktop_printing] FW: PWG PortMon MIB prototype results

[McDonald, Ira]

Hi,

Some comments inline below.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com 
-----Original Message-----
From: Ulrich Wehner [mailto:uwehner at lanier.com]
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 2:15 PM
To: McDonald, Ira
Cc: desktop_printing at osdl.org; desktop_printing-bounces at lists.osdl.org; Till
Kamppeter; 'Tim Waugh'
Subject: RE: [Desktop_printing] FW: PWG PortMon MIB prototype results



Ira, 

i am clearly not disagreeing with you... 

being able to dynamically configure the port is going to be valuable, static
ini files are just not going to do the job. 

bi-directional communication is another step towards properly configured
devices. (thinking of accessories, paper sources, etc) 

proprietary MIB locations or Enterprise MIB locations do not have to be in
the way of that, once a device is correctly identified, querying the proper
information should be easy enough. 

Most useful functions of our MIBs (standard or enterprise) are well
documented and quite public.... 


<ira> I congratulate you if Ricoh/Lanier make their enterprise MIBs
publicly available.  My former colleagues at Xerox also do so.  But
many vendors do NOT make their enterprise MIBs publicly available.
That's why the PWG continues to develop open standard MIBs that fill
this need (e.g., the new PWG Imaging Counters MIB approved in 
December 2005 for maintenance and accounting counters for
multifunction devices).
</ira>


why should we not be able to dynamically build a fully functional printer UI
with information provided via bidirectional information?


<ira> By "bidirectional", do you mean in-band in the print protocol 
(e.g., IPP)?  Since most legacy print protocols don't support capabilities
queries, this is difficult to implement.  Thus the 
out-of-band solutions like SNMP and the new IETF NetConf (which 
uses XML data structures).
</ira>

 
Clearly the number of features available on a printer (even a high-end
printer) is not unlimited. 


<ira> Perhaps not unlimited.  But looking at CIP4 JDF it will be 
very difficult to represent all of the features on high-end printers
in the limited syntax of MIBs.  And in the high-end especially, the
trend is towards Web-based management using complex XML data structures.
This will make printer UI implementations very large
and difficult to maintain (due to the inherent fragility of XML
data structures caused by namespace and versioning problems).
</ira>


However, as long as Microsoft charges per printer model to have the driver
"logo" certified it will be quite difficult to convince them that 1 (one)
printdriver that dynamically supports all printers is an acceptable
solution... 

On Linux there might be a lot less pushback, do not know enough about the
Apple guys. 



Regards
Uli Wehner 


"McDonald, Ira" <imcdonald at sharplabs.com> 
Sent by: desktop_printing-bounces at lists.osdl.org 
01/22/2006 12:26 PM To"'Tim Waugh'" <twaugh at redhat.com>, Till Kamppeter
<till.kamppeter at gmx.net> 
ccdesktop_printing at osdl.org 
SubjectRE: [Desktop_printing] FW: PWG PortMon MIB prototype results







Hi,

The method used in this script is proprietary - it does NOT represent
an open standard location for IEEE 1284 Device ID values - it is NOT
portable across vendors.

That's the reason for the PWG Printer Port Monitor MIB.

Cheers,
- Ira

Ira McDonald (Musician / Software Architect)
Blue Roof Music / High North Inc
PO Box 221  Grand Marais, MI  49839
phone: +1-906-494-2434
email: imcdonald at sharplabs.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tim Waugh [mailto:twaugh at redhat.com]
> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2006 4:59 AM
> To: Till Kamppeter
> Cc: McDonald, Ira; desktop_printing at osdl.org
> Subject: Re: [Desktop_printing] FW: PWG PortMon MIB prototype results
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jan 21, 2006 at 02:11:46AM +0100, Till Kamppeter wrote:
> 
> > Unfortunately, I cannot say who gave this script to me.
> 
> I think it was me.  That's certainly the method that Fedora Core uses
> for retrieving SNMP IEEE 1284 IDs.
> 
> Tim.
> */
> 
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