vCard KIND:application
draft-ietf-vcarddav-kind-app-00

Abstract

This document defines a value of "application" for the vCard KIND property so that vCards can be used to represent software applications.

Status of this Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 28, 2012.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Meaning
• 3. Example
• 4. IANA Considerations
• 5. Security Considerations
• 6. Acknowledgements
• 7. References
• 7.1. Normative References
• 7.2. Informative References
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

Version 4 of the vCard specification [VCARD] defines a new "KIND" property to specify the type of entity that a vCard represents. During its work on the base vCard4 specification, the VCARDDAV Working Group defined values of "individual", "organization", "group", and "location" for the KIND property. The working group considered but then removed a value of "thing" to represent any type of physical entity, machine, software application, etc., with the expectation that such a value might be defined in a vCard extension. This document does not define a generic "thing" value, but instead defines a more narrow "application" value so that vCards can be used to represent software applications.

2. Meaning

When the KIND property has a value of "application", the vCard represents a software application such as a server, an online service (e.g., a chatroom), or an automated software bot. More formally, an "application" is functionally equivalent to the 'applicationProcess' object class used in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol [RFC4519] as derived from the Open Systems Interconnection model [X.521] and [X.200]. As one example of the "application" KIND, vCards are currently used in the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol [RFC6120] to represent instant messaging servers that are deployed on the network.

The properties included in an application's vCard apply to one of the following:

• The application itself (e.g., the FN property might represent the friendly name of an application service, the URL property might represent a website that contains further information about the service, and the ADR, GEO, and TZ properties might represent the physical address, geographical location, and timezone of the machine where the service is hosted).
  
  
• An organization or person that makes the application available on the network (e.g., the LOGO property might represent the corporate logo of a service provider).
  
  
• A person or role that maintains the application (e.g., the TEL, EMAIL, and IMPP properties might represent ways to contact a server administrator).

When a property represents some aspect of the application itself, it makes no sense to include the "work" and "home" values of the TYPE parameter since software applications do not have work places and personal lives (see the definition of the TYPE parameter in Section 5.6 of [VCARD]). When a property represents information about an individual associated with the application (e.g., an individual service administrator as opposed to a generic service administrator role or an associated organization), inclusion of the "work" and "home" values can be appropriate.

The following base properties make sense for vCards that represent software applications (this list is not exhaustive, and other properties might be applicable as well):

• ADR
• EMAIL
• FN
• GEO
• IMPP
• KEY
• KIND
• LANG
• LOGO
• NOTE
• ORG
• PHOTO
• REV
• SOURCE
• TEL
• TZ
• URL

Although it might be desirable to define a more fine-grained taxonomy of applications (e.g., a KIND of "application" with a subtype of "server" or "IM server"), such a taxonomy is out of scope for this document.

3. Example

The following example of an XMPP server is borrowed from [XEP-0292] and uses the XML representation of vCard described in [VCARDXML].

<vcard xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:vcard-4.0"> 
  <fn><text>jabber.org IM service</text></fn>
  <url><uri>http://www.jabber.org/</uri></url>
  <lang>
    <parameters><pref>1</pref></parameters>
    <language-tag>en</language-tag>
  </lang>
  <email><text>xmpp@jabber.org</text></email>
  <impp><uri>xmpp:jabber.org</uri></impp>
  <logo><uri>http://www.jabber.org/images/logo.png</uri></logo>
  <geo><uri>geo:42.25,-91.05</uri></geo>
  <tz><text>America/Chicago</text></tz>
  <source><uri>xmpp:jabber.org?vcard</uri></source>
  <rev><timestamp>19990104T122100Z</timestamp></rev>
  <kind><text>application</text></kind>
</vcard>
        

4. IANA Considerations

The IANA is requested to add "application" to the registry of property values for vCard4. In conformance with Section 10.2.6 of [VCARD], the registration is as follows, where the reference is to RFCXXXX.

Value:

application

Purpose:

The entity represented by the vCard is a software application (e.g., a server, an online service such as a chatroom, or an automated software bot).

Conformance:

This value can be used with the "KIND" property.

Example:

See Section 3 of RFCXXXX.

[[NOTE TO RFC EDITOR: Please change XXXX to the number assigned to this specification, and remove this paragraph on publication.]]

5. Security Considerations

Use of vCards to represent software applications is not envisioned to introduce security considerations beyond those specified for vCards in general as described in [VCARD].

6. Acknowledgements

Thanks to Cyrus Daboo, Barry Leiba, Kepeng Li, and Simon Perreault for their feedback.

7. References

7.1. Normative References

7.2. Informative References

Author's Address