Subject: IPP>REQ - comments for next draft of requirements document

From: Roger K Debry <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 14:42:29 -0400

Carl-Uno, per your request, I have reviewed the requirements
document to see what we might change for the next ietf draft.

One of the objectives I've taken is to simplify and shorten the
document to only the essential information.
My comments follow:

Since there are no line numbers, I'll use sections, pages and paragraphs
to identify suggested chnages.

Section 1: Terminology

Recommend changing the first sentence in this section to read
"Internet Printing for the purposes of this document is the application
of Internet tools, programs ..."

Recommend the second sentence be changed to read
"This could include, for example, the use of HTTP ..."

Also remove the phrase static, dynamic, and intercative.

Also in this sentence, since we do not support these as part of
the IPP protocol, I recommend removing the following
- printer locating services
- user installation
- configuration

I suggest deleting the second paragraph.  I don't think it adds any value
and suggests that a Browser is a required element of an IPP implementation.

Section 2: Requirements

I suggest deleting the second sentence in the first paragraph.  I am not sure
what value it adds, and the distinction made for an application level protocol
is not very good in my mind anyway.

Section 2.1 End User

I suggest eliminating the first sentence in the first paragraph.  The second
sentence
seems sufficient to define the end user role.

Section 2.1.1 Finding and Locating a Printer

Since location is not part of the IPP protocol, I suggest adding the following
at the
end of this section.

"Although we do not expect the Internet Printing Protocol itself to support
this function,
IPP must define a directory schema which will provide the necessary information
for
a directory implementation to consistently represent IPP printers."

Section 2.1.2 Creating an instance of the Printer

I'd suggest changing the last sentence in this paragraph to read

The Internet Printing Protocol's role in this requirement is simply to enable
the creation of the printer instance by providing information, such as where
to locate a printer driver for this printer, as an attribute of an IPP Printer.

Section 2.1.3 Viewing the status and capabilities of a printer

Since I don't think that IPP currently supports the notion of loaded media,
I'd suggest changing the first bullet after the first paragraph to read

supported media, commonly paper, by size and type

Section 2.1.4 Submitting a print job

The last line of the first paragraph, change URL to URI (probably ought to do
a global change since there are surely more instances of URL in the document.

I think we could remove the second and third paragraphs, they seem redundant
to me.

In the bulleted list after the 4th paragraph, remove redirecting the print job
or state
that it is a future requirement. We currently do not provide redirection in IPP.

Remove the second sentence ("Any application level Internet ...) in the 5th
paragraph in the section.

Section 2.2 Operator

Although we say this (way in the last sentence of the section) I'd suggest
perhaps putting right in the section heading that this is not a V1.0
requirement.
For example,  "Section 2.2 Operator (Not a V1.0 Requirement)"

Section 2.3 Adminstrator

ditto last comment

Section 4 Objectives of the Protocol

Delete the second and third sentence of the second paragrph of this
section ("Any platform capable of ..."). This seems to be an implementation
statement, not a protocol statement, and I'm not sure it is true.

I recommend deleting the appendix (Section 8).  Although it may have had
some value in the past, I doubt that this level of detail is interesting to the
casual reader.

Roger K deBry
Senior Techncial Staff Member
Architecture and Technology
IBM Printing Systems
email: [email-masked]
phone: 1-303-924-4080