vCard KIND:thing
draft-saintandre-vcarddav-thing-00

Abstract

This document defines a value of "thing" for the vCard KIND property.

Status of this Memo

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This Internet-Draft will expire on October 22, 2011.

Copyright Notice

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Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Meaning
• 3. Example
• 4. IANA Considerations
• 5. Security Considerations
• 6. References
• 6.1. Normative References
• 6.2. Informative References
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

Version 4 of the vCard specification [VCARD] defines a new KIND property that specifies the type of entity that a vCard represents. During working group discussion of that specification, the "thing" value of the KIND property was removed, with the expectation that the value might be defined in a vCard extension. This document defines such an extension.

2. Meaning

When the KIND property has a value of "thing", the vCard represents a software application (e.g.,a server, a chatroom, or a bot) or a physical object (e.g., a building or a machine). As one example of the "thing" KIND, vCards are currently used in the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol [XMPP] to represent instant messaging servers that are deployed on the network.

All properties in a thing's vCard apply to one of the following:

• The thing 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 owns the thing (e.g., the LOGO property might represent the corporate logo of a service provider).
• A person or role that controls the thing (e.g., the TEL, EMAIL, and IMPP properties might represent ways to contact a server administrator).

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

• FN
• ADR
• TEL
• EMAIL
• IMPP
• LANG
• TZ
• GEO
• LOGO
• URL
• KEY

3. Example

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

<vcard xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:vcard-4.0"> 
  <vcards> 
    <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>
      <parameters><type><text>work</text></type></parameters>
      <text>xmpp@jabber.org</text>
    </email>
    <impp>
      <parameters><type><text>work</text></type></parameters>
      <uri>xmpp:jabber.org</uri>
    </impp>
    <logo>
      <parameters><type><text>work</text></type></parameters>
      <uri>http://www.jabber.org/images/logo.png</uri>
    </logo>
    <geo>
      <parameters><type><text>work</text></type></parameters>
      <uri>geo:42.25,-91.05</uri>
    </geo>
    <tz><text>America/Chicago</text></tz>
    <kind><text>thing</text></kind>
  </vcard>
</vcards>
        

4. IANA Considerations

The IANA is requested to add "thing" 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 XXXX.

Value:

thing

Purpose:

The object represented by the vCard is an automated entity, such as a software application or a physical object.

Conformance:

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

Example:

See Section 3 of XXXX.

5. Security Considerations

Use of vCards to represent non-human entities is not envisioned to introduce security considerations beyond those specified for vCards in general as described in [VCARD].

6. References

6.1. Normative References

6.2. Informative References

Author's Address