![Printer Working Group logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Printer_Working_Group_logo.svg)
The Printer Working Group (PWG) is a Program of the
IEEE Industry Standard and Technology Organization (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 The Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) is a specialized Internet protocol for communication between client devices (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc.) and printers (or print servers). It allows clients to submit one or more print jobs to the pr ...
(IPP) and maintains the
Printer MIB,
Job Monitoring MIB
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
,
Finishers MIB, and various PWG-specific MIBs used via the
Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP). IPP is supported by almost all network printers, is the basis of the various driverless printing standards including
AirPrint
AirPrint is a feature in Apple Inc.'s macOS and iOS operating systems for printing
without installing printer-specific drivers. Connection is via a wireless LAN (Wi-Fi), either directly to AirPrint-compatible printers, or to non-compatible shar ...
,
IPP Everywhere,
Mopria, and
Wi-Fi Direct Print Services, and is used by various print spoolers including
CUPS
CUPS (formerly an acronym for Common UNIX Printing System) is a modular computer printer, printing system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows a computer to act as a print server. A computer running CUPS is a Server (computi ...
.
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. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
, 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 globall ...
) 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, telecommuni ...
,
GENICOM
GENICOM was an American manufacturer of computer printers, based in Chantilly, Virginia. The company operated from 1982 to 2003.
The GE years
In 1954, General Electric (GE) decided to decentralize the company into separate business units. After re ...
, 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, e ...
,
Canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
,
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 itse ...
,
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 technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
,
Xerox
Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...
, 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 processo ...
, 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 drive ...
and
Ricoh
is a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company (law), company. It was founded by the now-defunct commercial division of the Riken, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (Riken) known as the ''Riken concern (business), Concer ...
.
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 operation ...
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