The Printer Working Group (PWG) is a Program of the

IEEE Industry Standard and Technology Organization The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...

(ISTO) with members including printer and multi-function device manufacturers, print server developers, operating system providers, print management application developers, and industry experts. Originally founded in 1991 as the Network Printing Alliance, the PWG is chartered to make printers, multi-function devices, and the applications and operating systems supporting them work together better. The PWG enjoys an open standards development process. Everyone is welcome to contribute to the development of our documents and standards, serve as editors, and participate in interoperability tests. Members may additionally serve as officers in the various working groups. Voting Members approve the documents and standards for publication and may serve as officers of the PWG.

Workgroups

The PWG has two active workgroups: the Internet Printing Protocol workgroup and the Imaging Device Security workgroup. The Internet Printing Protocol workgroup develops and maintains the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and maintains the

Printer MIB Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * J ...

, Job Monitoring MIB,

Finishers MIB Finisher may refer to: * Finisher (wrestling), a move in professional wrestling * ''The Finisher'' (series), also known as ''Vega Jane'', a book series by David Baldacci ** ''The Finisher'' (novel), the first book in the series * '' The Finisher ...

, and various PWG-specific MIBs used via the

Simple Network Monitoring Protocol Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: * Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by John ...

(SNMP). IPP is supported by almost all network printers, is the basis of the various driverless printing standards including AirPrint,

IPP Everywhere IPP may refer to: Organisations * Independent Power Producer, electric power generator * India Pride Project, recovering stolen Indian artefacts * Istituto per la Protezione delle Piante (Institute of Plant Protection), Italy * Max-Planck-Insti ...

Mopria The Mopria Alliance was formed in September 2013, with the four founding members, all among the world's largest printer manufacturers, including Canon, HP, Samsung, and Xerox. According to their mission statement, "the Mopria Alliance provides ...

, and

Wi-Fi Direct Print Services Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio ...

, and is used by various print spoolers including CUPS. The Imaging Device Security (IDS) workgroup develops and maintains security-related standards and best practices, and has a liaison with the Common Criteria organization in order to develop and maintain the current Hardcopy Device (HCD) Collaborative Protection Profile (cPP).

History

In February 1990, the IETF Network Printing Protocol working group was chartered. In August 1990, the working group published RFC 1179: Line Printer Daemon Protocol to document the prevalent network printing protocol at the time. In 1991, a consortium of printer and network manufacturers (Insight Development,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

, LAN Systems,

Lexmark Lexmark International, Inc. is a privately held American company that manufactures laser printers and imaging products. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky. Since 2016 it has been jointly owned by a consortium of three multination ...

and

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

) formed the Network Printing Alliance (NPA). Later members included QMS,

Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommunic ...

, GENICOM, Okidata,

Unisys Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions ...

, Canon, IBM,

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

Adaptec Adaptec was a computer storage company and remains a brand for computer storage products. The company was an independent firm from 1981 to 2010, at which point it was acquired by PMC-Sierra, which itself was later acquired by Microsemi, which its ...

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

, Digital Products, Pennant Systems, Extended Systems and NEC. In 1993, the NPA was reformed as the Printer Working Group and added HP,

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...

, Xircom, Farpoint Communications, Zenith, Castelle,

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

, 3M,

Cirrus Logic Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas. The company's audio proces ...

, Amp,

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

and

Ricoh is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken Concern'', on 6 February 1936 as . Ricoh's he ...

. In January 1994, the IETF Printer MIB working group was chartered. This working group published a series of SNMP MIB RFCs from 1995 through 2004, at which point development and maintenance of printer-related MIBs transitioned to the Printer Working Group. In March 1997, the IETF Internet Printing Protocol working group was chartered. This working group published a series of IPP RFCs from 1999 through 2005, at which point development and maintenance of IPP transitioned to the Printer Working Group. In September 1999, the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

formalized an alliance with PWG as part of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO). Since then, the PWG has published over 60 standards and informational documents related to printing and printers. In March 2015, the IETF published a new IPP RFC developed by the PWG IPP workgroup - RFC 7472: IPP over HTTPS Transport Binary and the ipps URI Scheme. In January 2017, the IETF published updates to the core IPP RFCs (RFC 2910, 2911, 3381, and 3382) developed by the PWG IPP workgroup - RFC 8010: Internet Printing Protocol/1.1: Encoding and Transport and RFC 8011: Internet Printing Protocol/1.1: Model and Semantics. In June 2018, the IETF published these RFCs as Internet Standard 92.

References

{{reflist Information technology organizations Computer printers Working groups