Report of the PWG standard Printer-Interface meeting
January 21, 1999

The meeting was not as well attended as anticipated. There were early indications that appx.
30 people would participate in the January meeting. It is possible that an analogous effort 
occurring within the Finishing industry and/or confusion related to project scope (inline 
vs. standalone or networked finishers, cutsheet vs. continuous forms pre and post processing) 
may have confused and detracted from this meeting.

Attendees:
Raymond Balmes - Oce
Ron Bergman - Dataproducts
Tom Hastings - Xerox
Jan Idomir - HP
Harry Lewis - IBM

Concepts related to a standard Printer-Finisher interface were discussed and reviewed for 
the 4th session in the PWG. In general, a standard interface would alleviate Finisher 
vendors from having to develop custom interfaces to their equipment for every printer 
vendor. Printer vendors would be alleviated from architecting and maintaining private 
interfaces and would be able to produce Finishers based on finishing function rather than 
interface compliance. Overall product development cycles would be shortened. In addition, 
a standard Printer-Finisher interface would address:

1. Finisher "plug-and-play"
2. Automatic population of the Finisher MIB attributes
3. Facilitating automatic driver configuration in bi-di environments.

While the PWG remains interested in the concept of a standard Printer-Finisher interface, 
we do not have the expertise to drive this topic. In 4 consecutive (incubation) sessions, 
the topic has failed to product a charter, requirements proposal or model document.

The PWG is suspending this topic and recommending someone from the Finishing Industry submit   
a draft charter and requirements document prior to scheduling any more meetings. Upon 
receiving an acceptable charter, requirements and model proposal, the PWG will gladly 
schedule a meeting within the following 6-week period.

The PWG encourages continued discussion regarding the standard Printer-Finisher interface 
and will provide the "fin@pwg.org" e-mail reflector (with sub topic PFX) for such 
discussion. Anyone interested in furthering or discussion this topic is encouraged to join 
this mailing list by sending e-mail to majordomo@pwg.org with the words "Subscribe FIN" in 
the body. 

A web link category for Finishing will be added to the PWG web site at www.pwg.org. This 
category will contain a pointer to the Finisher MIB as well as any standard Printer-Finisher
submissions that may be received in the future. 

Report submitted by Harry Lewis - 2/5/99