Subject: PMP> Re: IPP> MIME-types and alignment

From: Harry Lewis <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 17:00:04 -0400

Larry... you are concerned that

>I asked:
>
>> I would like to inquire if there are clients of printer MIBs
>> >that use the enum list of printer interpreters for anything other
>> >than displaying to the user of a system monitoring device for
>> >informational display
>
>and you answered with a hypothetical ("may be") rather than an actual
>("is, in the following product"):

When you insinuate that an application using prtInterpreterLangFamilyTC
programmatically or coupling knowledge of the Printer MIB with discovery
is a "misuse" of SNMP, then ask for public disclosure and names of
applications that do so, please don't interpret lack of response as
resolution to the concern.

I will assume that this context developed, unintentionally, out of
enthusiastic quest for closure to the discussion, and try to
answer your question in a more straightforward manner.

People will tend to use what is defined and what works. There
is currently no more widely embraced Internet standard related
to printing than the Printer MIB. It is perfectly feasible to use
this standard MIB as part of a scheme to discover printer
capabilities and make programmatic choices based on what is
found and ... yes... there are products which do this today.
I own some of them and I am aware of at least one other source
of applications utilizing this practice - I suspect there are more.

Harry Lewis