Re: [hylafax-users] Iternet-Fax WG Anyone?

[Bill Binko <bill-sender-4b2fd6@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 3 Aug 2004, Lee Howard wrote:
> > The T.37 is based on the "Internet Fax" or "IFax" standard defined by
> > the
> > ietf as RFCs 2301-2305 (with updated RFCs available at
> > http://www.imc.org/ietf-fax).
>
> Just so that everyone is clear on this, there is also another "internet
> fax" standard defined by T.38 which is not a "store-and-forward" form.
> T.37 and T.38 are quite different.

Quite true!  T.38 is based on H.323 and is for "real-time" fax
transmissions over IP (basically forwarding the fax protocol real-time).

>
> > I looked through the archives and found little to go on, except for a
> > brief thread in May 2001 where Lee concluded that Hylafax's faxmail
> > and
> > T.37 were: "Not close at all.  Feel like coding it?"
>
> I don't recall ever studying T.37.  I have studied T.38, and I suspect
> that my comments were related to T.38 vs. faxmail.

I just realized that that sounded like a slam: I'm sorry Lee!  I actually
figured you were talking about the "Extended" internet fax protocol which
I think is part of T.37 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2532.txt).  Either
way: your comments are usually right on and very helpful -- I don't want
to offend in any way!

The comment I was talking about was this one:
http://www.hylafax.org/archive/2001-05/msg00409.html

> Have you considered my recently posted ideas about using fax machines
> as networked HylaFAX client devices (in part by using PBX software such
> as Asterisk)?  You'd get all of the benefits of HylaFAX with all of the
> ease-of-use of the fax machine.

That's an interesting idea: I'll go back to the archives.  Is Asterisk up
to snuff now?  I had an interesting experience a few years ago with it :(

>
> > I wanted to get the same benefits for their outbound paper faxes, so I
> > planned on writing another script that let him "scan to email to fax"
> > using faxmail.  Then I noticed the T.37 feature on the machine and
> > realized that this was worth looking into.
>
> It is worth looking into.
>
> > Many of the devices we looked at included T.37 support: Ricoh,
> > Panasonic,
>
> I have read through a couple of Panasonic Panafax manuals that had
> fax-to-email capabilities, and I don't remember any comments about T.37.

Their DP models all seem to have it now.  Here's an example:
http://catalog2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ModelDetail?storeId=11201&catalogId=13051&itemId=71460&catGroupId=13843&displayTab=F&surfModel=DP-1820E&surfCategory=Digital%20B/W%20MFP

> > The problem is there's no open-source T.37 gateway that I could find!
>
> Yes there is: procmail (or even shell, for that matter).

Point taken: see below

>
> > Personally, I think it would be fairly simple to modify faxmail to
> > accept T.37 addresses.  They are basically of the form
> > "FAX=+12223334444@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx".
>
> Extending faxmail wouldn't be difficult, but you would have to get it
> to handle TIFF attachments or whatever attachment type T.37 uses.  By
> the same token, it probably would take far less time in developing a
> procmail solution.  I must have written a dozen different faxmail
> replacements using procmail and/or shell, and I suspect that I've spent
> less time in total than it would have taken me to enhance faxmail to my
> liking.

I'm not tied to extending faxmail per se: I just think this would be a
good addition to the Hylafax suite out of the box.  faxmail is the closest
we have to this functionaliy I believe.  If the right approach is a new
clean perl/sh/procmail/other script and some instructions for setting it
up with the major MTAs, I'm open to that.  I just thought that since
faxmail had the conversion code in there and already did a very similar
job I'd try not to reinvent the wheel.

As far as the TIFF format, the spec says it's a restricted TIFF-F.  The
Sharp lets you set either "MH (G3) or MMR (G4)" from the display when
sending (with a default of "MH (G3)").  I'm not sure what these map to in
real TIFF land, but it shouldn't be too hard to grab one and decipher it.

>
> > If there's interest in the community, please let me know
>
> There's interest, don't worry.  Once you let people know on-list of
> this "neat, newfangled way" of getting the routine stuff done in a
> better fashion, then people will perk up.  Sometimes you have to show
> people how good it can be before they realize that they're missing
> something.
>

I'm not sure how sarcastic that was :)

But, I think you're right in one way: if I make this work and write it up
well, it will probably get some users.  I just wonder if it should go into
the core.

As always, thanks for the input.

Bill


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