Subject: IPP> ADM - Minutes from PWG IPP Phone Conference - 980114

From: Carl-Uno Manros <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 10:59:33 PST

Minutes from PWG IPP Phone Conference - 980114

Attending:

	Carl-Uno Manros
	Don Wright
	Scott Isaacson
	Bob Herriot
	Tom Hastings
	Paul Moore
	Peter Zehler
	Ron Bergman
	Keith Carter
	Swen Johnson
	Carl Kugler
	Steve Gebert
	Jim Walker
	Harry Lewis
	Randy Turner
	Ira Mcdonald
	Xavier Riley
	One more gentleman from Novell (who's name I couldn't read afterwards!)

The main agenda point was to discuss Paul Moore's suggestion to examine the
use of XML to carry the protocol information which is currently in the
application/ipp MIME type.

Paul explained that the Microsoft Web Architecture team wanted to examine
the potential use of XML in IPP in order to align our protocol solution
with other standardization projects such as WEBDAV, which have already
jumped onto the XML bandwagon. He offered to have a strawman proposal ready
for presentation at the PWG IPP meeting in Maui on January 28th. Paul would
show up for the meeting and also bring along a Microsoft Web/XML expert.

It was agreed that this was a reasonable way to proceed for now, but it was
also clear that the group had not yet bought into this approach.

A number of comments were offered:

Tom Hastings has written up a small document listing the requirements for a
new protocol mapping, which has been distrubuted to the DL. Paul Moore
promissed to make sure that that list was studied in writing up the new
proposal.

Bob Herriot said that he had already stated his own analysis to try to
determine if a mapping to XML was feasible. Some initial ideas have already
been sent to the DL. He had identified a couple of issues, the most
important one seems to be how we get the document data in - can they form
part of the XML structure or do they have to be in a separate file? Bob
will try to verify any XML issues that come up with Sun experts that are
active in the XML project.

Peter Zehler wanted to get better information about the extra footprint
that an XML parser would take up in a small printer, compared to our
current solution.

It was also pointed out that the W3C has not yet ratified XML as an
official Recommendation; voting closes on January 20th.

Scott Isaacson pointed out that the Microsoft idea about also introducing
new HTTP methods was a separate subject that should be discussed
independently from the XML discussion. It seemed to be little or no
interest in the group to go over that subject again, which has been
extensively discussed during last year.

Paul More undertook to not only provide the new draft solution, but also to
come up with some convincing rationale for why we should consider the change.

It was also requested to set up a phone conference into the Maui meeting
for people who are unable to attend. Carl-Uno will organize that in
collaboration with Larry Stein who is making the conference arrangements
for Maui. The phone conference will be held on January 28th, 1 - 3 pm local
time (which is 3 - 5 pm PST and 6 - 8 pm EST), mark your calendars. So far,
20 people had signed up to be present in Maui on January 28th. I few more
might come due to this agenda change. Paul Moore will make sure that the
Microsoft input is available on the IPP DL on the day before the meeting.

On the IPP meeting agenda we will now reserve the time from 10:30 am to at
most 5 pm on the 28th for discussion of the prosed new protocol mapping,
which means that we will shorten the time previously planned to discuss
possible future extensions to IPP. Some, or all, of that discussion will be
moved to the following day, during which we will also discuss
interoperability testing. 

The rest of the phone conference was devoted to some detailed comments
about the Model & Semantics document. Scott Isaacson will document the
final results of those discussions in the latest draft, which has actually
already been distributed to the DL carrying the date January 16th. This
draft is NOT expected to change further.

Next week's phone conference will review any new information that has come
up on the DL in the meantime.
---

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: [email-masked]

---

From: Larry Masinter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:40:00 PST

If you use XML for the protocol mapping and yet want to get
file data in, you might consider a protocol mapping which separates
the print data stream from the print protocol using MIME
multipart, e.g., "multipart/related" where the print protocol
elements are in an XML data structure, and the binary data streams
are encoded appropriately just with their MIME media designations
(application/postscript, etc.).

Larry
-- 
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter

---

From: James Walker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:02:18 -0600

> (application/postscript, etc.).

This seemed like a nice approach to me as well.  In fact, I so much
as raised it as a suggestion at the last IPP conference call (only
I being a MIME neophyte suggested "multipart/mixed"; your suggestion
sounds a lot better to me).  However, my suggestion was immediately
shouted down, as "this issue had already been discussed in the past,
and a decision made".

Well, as we are re-visiting the protocol encoding at this point, I
would like to have this decision re-considered as well.  It seems
like a multipart MIME message, with the protocol and data in separate
parts would be a natural solution.

...walker

--
Jim Walker <[email-masked]>
System Architect/DAZEL Wizard
DAZEL Corporation, Austin, TX

---

From: Carl-Uno Manros <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 08:49:10 PST

>shouted down, as "this issue had already been discussed in the past,

Jim,

This is not my recollection from the phone conference. I believe that I 
also brought up this alternative, when Bob Herriot indicated that he saw 
a problem with including the document data within an XML body. 

I think that the more important issue is whether we find consensus that 
going down the XML lane at all makes sense at this stage.

Carl-Uno
Carl-Uno Manros