Ten Years After: CIP4 and the Creation of JDF

Growing Up
Ten years later, every printer has some software or equipment capable of handling JDF, but that isn't the whole story. CIP4's success was not a given, and along the way, there were some trying moments. CIP4 started off as a standards association whose mission was (and still is) to "foster the adoption of process automation in the printing industry." Many have argued that "true" standards must be established under the ISO umbrella, however there are other models to follow. CIP4 works in a way similar to software standards organizations, such as the World Wide Web Consortium where "standards" are floated in draft form to the membership, allowing members to develop and test systems and provide feedback. Several iterations of a standard may be necessary before everyone can agree that it's ready for publication. In the case of JDF, it wasn't until version 1.1a of the JDF specification was released in October 2002 that systems could really be tested with beta users, proofed, boxed and shipped. The first major wave of JDF-enabled software and systems didn't hit the market until drupa 2004.