Re: the latest draft, LPR-LPD

[Bruce Crabill <[e-mail]>]

>>Interoperability is important.
>
>Full agreement.  RFC 1179 was fully interoperable with the BSD 4.3 code.
>It is essential that RFC-XXXX be fully interoperable with 1179 and 4.3.

Sorry, I disagree.  If a person picked up RFC 1179 and not ever having worked
with a BSD 4.3 LPD tried to implement an LPR according to the RFC 1179 spec
would end up with a LPR that would not interoperate with BSD 4.3 machines.
It might very well work with the code that company sells, but RFC 1179
clearly states:

    "The Berkeley versions of the Unix(tm) operating system provide line
     printer spooling with a collection of programs: lpr (assign to
     queue), lpq (display the queue), lprm (remove from queue), and lpc
     (control the queue).  These programs interact with an autonomous
     process called the line printer daemon.  This RFC describes the
     protocols with which a line printer daemon client may control
     printing."

In fact, it did not document the protocol as used by BSD.  Please don't think
that I'm saying that the BSD LPR protocol is perfect as is and doesn't need
improvement, the operating system environment that I program in needs some
of those enhancements that you made, however, you can't claim that RFC 1179
documented the BSD protocol when in reality it didn't.

                                       Bruce