Editor's note:  These minutes have not been edited.
 



            37th IETF, IPP BOF                         December 12, 1996


                             Internet Printing Protocol
                             Birds of a Feather Session

                                  December 12, 1996


            Reported by: Don Wright

            Carl-Uno Manros,  (Chair) reviewed the agenda for the
            meeting.

            He then gave a short talk about the lack of IETF standards
            for printing.  He also discussed how this effort started
            under the Printer Working Group.

            Don Wright presented an overview of the Internet printing
            requirements.  The following were significant issues raised
            by the attendees:
                 - firewalls
                 - there are no ` `operators' ', only users
                 - using HTTP as a transport
                 - LPR/LPD/RFC1179 discussion

            Carl-Uno presented the charter:
                 - Will address needs of normal, end-user roles
                 - Will not address needs of the operator and
            administrator roles
                 - The group will strive to build on existing standards
            and technologies
                 - Would like to use existing standards for directories
                 - The submitting protocol should not exclude other
            devices (fax, etc.)

            It was pointed out that HTTP 1.0 is not an IETF
            standard.  HTTP 1.1 is a proposed standard that might be
            applicable to IPP.

            Suggestion from the meeting -- don't explicitly tie IPP to
            HTTP.

            The question was raised whether a scenario statement of how to
            use IPP without a directory server was needed.

            Carl-Uno presented the planned drafts list which included:

            - Requirements (Informational)
            - MIME Types for IPP (Standards Track)
            - Application Protocol - IPP (Standards Track)
            - IPP on HTTP (Standards Track)
            - IPP Directory Support -LDAP Object Classes for Printers
              (Standards Track)

            He also presented the deliverables and milestones for the
            project.


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            37th IETF, IPP BOF                         December 12, 1996



            There was a discussion as to whether the group should do the
            work on the various drafts in parallel versus serial.
            Several combinations of serial and parallel were also
            discussed.  No conclusion.

            Scott Isaacson presented the IPP protocol document.  The
            following issues were raised:
                 - Will the protocol support printer configuration - No,
            not in 1.0
                 - Continued discussion on using HTTP.

            Open Discussion:

            1) A concern was raised that there was some overlap
            between the work proposed by the proposed fax group and the
            proposed print group.  This overlap will be assessed by the
            Application Area Directors.

            2) HTTP issue again.  Suggested using specific HTML as well
            to more strongly tie IPP to HTTP.

            3) A concern was raised about running over HTTP to get
            through firewalls.  This plan was called ``bogus' ' by one on
            the attendees.

            4) The group was reminded that HTTP can be used in
            both directions to not only send the job but also to
            retrieve status, etc.

            5) Suggestion to define the MIME objects and encoding first.

            6) Harald Alvestrand wanted the charter to be simplified by
            removing some of the work items such as removing the LDAP
            mapping and the HTTP mapping.

            7) More discussion about using RFC1179.  Someone suggested
            the group should fix RFC 1179 as a part of this project.
            There was no interest on the part of the core group to do
            this.

            Carl-Uno asked for a show of hands as to whether this effort
            was worthy of a being a chartered WG.  More than half of  the
            attendees felt it was.  When asked who thought the effort
            shouldn't be chartered, only 1 person raised his hand.  That
            person's concern was that the proposed charter was too
            broad.