Talk:PictBridge

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Is anyone doing a PictBridge emulation for Windows, Mac or Linux?

The PictBridge facilities would be welcomed by anyone with such a camera, a colour printer and a USB port on their computer.

I'd like to use something like that on my digital pictures stored within my computer to send them to my printer.

--217.146.127.25 23:20, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Not possible; you would need to emulate a USB device, but PCs etc have only USB host ports & controllers. --Jkew 01:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Various discussions related to PictBridge openness

Removal of the "open standard" claim from the opening paragraph:

The applicability of that phrase to PictBridge is sufficiently disputed (see below) that it should not be part of the opening paragraph.
The phrase "an industry standard from [CIPA]" already implies many of the ways in which PictBridge might be seen as an open standard.

Pjrm 12:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Insertion of new paragraph discussing the extent to which PictBridge is an open standard:

A google search for ‘PictBridge "open standard"’ suggests that PictBridge is often described as being an open standard, which in turn suggests that people consider it valuable to know whether or not it is an open standard, which suggests that it is valuable for the wikipedia entry to say something on the subject.
It is commonly described as an open standard, without qualification (as demonstrated by the google search and the previous version of this entry), yet there are significant objections to considering it to be one (see below).

Pjrm 12:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On whether PictBridge is an “open standard”:

‘open standard’ is not a uniquely or precisely defined term, but not being allowed to discuss details of a specification “in the open” seems reasonable grounds not to consider it an “open standard”. It appears that the PictBridge specification can only be obtained after signing a non-disclosure agreement:

All information I could find on the CIPA web site (at 2006-02-12) indicates that the specification can only be downloaded after payment of JPY 50000 (~= USD$427) and signing the agreement found at http://www.cipa.jp/pictbridge/documents_e/ObtainingStandard_E.pdf, of which articles 2.1 and 2.2 are:

2.1 CIPA shall disclose and provide the DOCUMENTS [one of which is the specification] and necessary information therefore to APPLICANT, only after APPLICANT executed and submitted this AGREEMENT to CIPA and pay Fifty Thousand Japanese Yen (¥50,000) to CIPA [...] [unless APPLICANT is a member of CIPA].

2.2 APPLICANT shall not disclose or provide any DOCUMENTS or any information which CIPA has disclosed pursuant to Section 2.1 above, to any third party other than [closely affiliated corporations, as defined by majority voting rights].

CIPA is the owner of the standard, so I suppose that no specification is available other than either by entering into this agreement, or by someone constructing a specification by reverse-engineering the protocol.

In the wiki page, I've translated "APPLICANT shall not disclose ... any information which CIPA has disclosed pursuant to Section 2.1" as "agree not to disclose any information from the specification"; and have translated "to any third party other than AFFILIATES" as "to others" (given the very close relationship required to count as an AFFILIATE).

The wording I've chosen doesn’t explicitly claim it not to be an open standard, though the ‘whereas’ wording does strongly suggest this. The appropriate wording depends on to what extent an informed person might reasonably consider PictBridge to be an open standard. (For example, one could change ‘whereas’ to ‘though’ or ‘However’, or in the other direction one could explicitly claim it not to be an open standard.)

A recent groklaw article cites three definitions of ‘open standard’. A requirement of non-disclosure is sufficient impediment not to meet the “minimum requirements for an open standard” given in Europe’s “Valoris Report”. With other definitions (including the one currently in wikipedia), the question of whether such a specification is an open standard depends on interpretation of phrases like “publicly available” or “available to all to read & implement”; though the wikipedia definition does note

Many technical specifications that are sometimes considered standards are proprietary rather than being open, and are only available under restrictive contract terms (if they can be obtained at all) from the organization that owns the copyright for the specification.

which strongly suggests that specifications “only available under restrictive contract terms” are not open standards.

Pjrm 12:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for including the sentence on barriers to implementing as FLOSS is to give some idea of the /limits/ of the openness and standardness of PictBridge (this being the topic of the paragraph).

A lesser reason is to illustrate a concrete consequence of this restriction, which may well be relevant to people who need to know whether or not PictBridge is in fact an open standard.

Possibly this limit could be communicated more succinctly.

As to whether FLOSS really can implement PictBridge other than by reverse engineering:

See above for discussion of whether the PictBridge specification is available other than either by signing a non-disclosure agreement or as a result of reverse engineering.

Given the intended use of the specification, I suppose that distributing firmware or other software implementing PictBridge (as various CIPA member companies do) would not be considered a violation of section 2.2. However, source code is human-readable by definition ("preferred form of the work for making modifications to it", as version 2 of the Gnu GPL puts it), whereas object code is usually not considered human-readable (though it can be read with effort), so I (as a non-lawyer) would guess that distributing source code would count as "disclosure to others" whether or not distributing object code is considered a violation.

Pjrm 12:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright violation

I removed text from the article because it seems to be copied from http://www.letsgodigital.org/en/news/articles/story_52.html. --Gia.cossa 19:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Pictbridge symbol.gif

Image:Pictbridge symbol.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 09:15, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]