CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_


Reported by Glenn Trewitt/DEC

NPP Minutes

Agenda


   o Walk through LPR/LPD Protocol draft.
   o Walk through Printer Access Protocol draft.


There was a lot to go through on both drafts.  Either could have
occupied the entire meeting.  Because there were very few attendees
interested in PAP, compared to LPR/LPD, we dealt only with that in the
meeting.  PAP was covered outside the meeting (actually, only Jim Jones,
the author, and I showed up).  This meeting was well-attended, and most
of the people had read the draft before the meeting.  Early preparation
does pay off!

LPR/LPD Protocol Draft

We finally decided to make a clean break between the existing protocol
and this specification, so it would be absolutely clear what was ``in''
the old and new.  We paid full attention to old vs.  new
interoperability issues.  Specifically:


  1. The ``new'' features were removed from the ``old'' commands:


       o Zero-length for data files with EOF indicated by connection
         close.

       o Data file vs.  control file ordering.


  2. To provide these (very needed) features, we added two new opcodes:


       o Receive Data File With Unknown Length - receive a data file,
         terminated by connection close.

       o Receive Control File First - receive a control file before its
         associated data files.


For the new commands, we defined explicit rules for how a client should
employ them, to achieve interoperability with both old and new LPD
daemons.  The new draft will have a very solid line between ``old'' and
``new'' LPD features.  A new draft will be available in September.

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Printer Access Protocol

Most of the work here was aimed at getting everything in the document
that was appropriate for a protocol RFC -- full information so that the
protocol is implementable from the document, and removing
implementation-specific verbiage.  There is still significant work to do
on this document.

Attendees

Charles Bazaar           bazaar@emulex.com
David Bridgham           dab@asylum.sf.ca.us
Philip Budne             phil@shiva.com
Cerafin Castillo         cec@emulex.com
James Jones              jones@regent.enet.dec.com
Charles Kimber           ckimber@dcp.com
Stev Knowles             stev@ftp.com
Louis Mamakos            louie@ni.umd.edu
Leo McLaughlin           ljm@wco.ftp.com
Keith Moore              moore@cs.utk.edu
Michael O'Dell           mo@bellcore.com
Richard Smith            smiddy@pluto.dss.com
Glenn Trewitt            trewitt@nsl.dec.com
Peter de Vries           peter@wco.ftp.com



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