Interoperability of TIFF FX

Lloyd,

It is clearly stated that Adobe's 9/97 license grant was the purpose 
of Internet fax.

Dismissing the requirement to have TIFF FX pass Internet Fax 
interoperability requirements is clearly wrong.   You seem to defend 
progression of TIFF FX based on interoperability tests other than 
Internet Fax use, which is clearly outside the scope of the Adobe 
license.   It also raises a separate issue regarding the intended use 
of TIFF FX by those conducting non-Internet fax interoperability 
tests.

Thus, in addition to the TIFF FX specification being out of scope of 
Adobe's license grant, the IETF has yet to receive or consider 
interoperability tests that were conducted within the scope of the 
license grant.  Further, it would seem that the IETF process is being 
used to develop a standard with intended use and based on 
interoperability tests that are outside the stated scope of not only 
Adobe's license, but that of the working group.

It would seem that the IETF would want the 'intended use' of the 
standards it develops to be within the scope of 'stated purpose' of 
the working group performing the development.  Your interoperability 
comments indicate otherwise.

Given that the specification and the interoperability testing is out 
of scope of Adobe's license grant, it would seem that any 
implementation and use of TIFF FX is built on very shaky ground. 
This should be of concern to anyone building product based on TIFF FX.

I continue to support a plan that focuses on progression of just 
those parts that can pass interoperability testing as described in 
London.  Only in this case is it likely that license scope issues 
will be minimal or nonexistent.  Only then can product 
implementations be on firm ground.

Scott



At 4:47 PM -0700 9/11/01, McIntyre, Lloyd wrote:
>Larry,
>I am surprised that you of all people would be confused about what is
>appropriate for interoperability testing of a fileformat, such as TIFF-FX.
>Given your statement below, let me clarify for everyone's benefit that
>TIFF-FX is a fileformat and NOT an Internet Fax implementation, consequently
>http://www.ietf.org/IESG/Implementations/TIFF-FAX-implementation.txt
>satisfies the requirements, as confirmed by the IFax WG Chair.
>
>Lloyd
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Larry Masinter [mailto:[email protected]]
>>  Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 8:44 PM
>>  To: [email protected]
>>  Subject: RE: Resolving TIFF dilemma
>>
>>
>>
>>  I was hoping we could make progress on the question of
>>  interoperability
>>  between existing Internet Fax implementations and typical
>>  configurations
>>  of email receivers and their image/tiff displayers. It would seem to
>>  be difficult to judge without actual data and sample files from
>>  actual Internet Fax implementations.
>>
>>  In any case, all of the implementations in
>>   
>>  http://www.ietf.org/IESG/Implementations/TIFF-FAX-implementation.txt
>>  are described as TIFF-(F)x reader/writer, not Internet Fax
>>  implementations.
>>  Shouldn't the criteria for Internet Fax interoperability be judged
>>  by implementations of Internet Fax?
>>
>>  Larry
>>
>>