IMPP C. Jennings
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems
Expires: August 14, 2004 February 14, 2004
vCard Extensions for IMPP
draft-jennings-impp-vcard-02
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://
www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 14, 2004.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This draft describes an extension to vCard to support Instant
Messaging (IM) and Presence Protocol (PP) applications. IM and PP are
becoming increasingly common ways of communicating, and users want to
save this contact information in their address books. This draft
allows a URI that is associated with IM or PP to be specified inside
of a vCard.
This work is being discussed on the imc-vcard@imc.org mailing list.
1. Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3].
2. Overview
As more and more people use various instant messaging (IM) and
presence protocol (PP) applications, it becomes important for them to
be able to share this contact address information along with the rest
of their contact information. RFC 2425 [1] and RFC 2426 [2] define a
standard format for this information which is referred to as vCard.
This document defines a new type in a vCard for representing instant
IM and PP URIs. It is very similar to existing types for representing
email address and telephone contact information.
The type entry to hold this new contact information is an IMPP type.
The IMPP entry has a single URI that indicates the address of a
service that provides IM, PP, or both. Also defined are some
parameters that give hints as to when certain URIs would be
appropriate. A given vCard can have multiple IMPP entries but each
entry can contain only one URI. Each IMPP entry can contain multiple
parameters. Any combination of parameters is valid, though a
parameter should occur at most once in a given IMPP entry.
The type of URI indicates what protocols might be useable for
accessing it, but this document does not define any of the types. For
example a URI type of "sip"[6] might indicate to use SIP/SIMPLE,
"xmpp"[7] indicates to use jabber, "irc"[5] indicates to use IRC,
"ymsgr" indicates to use yahoo, "msn" might indicate to use
messenger, "aim" indicates to use AOL, and "im"[9] or "pres"[8]
indicates to use a CPIM or CPP gateway.
The normative definition of this new vCard type is given in Section
3, and an informational ABNF is provided in Section 4.
3. IMPP Type Definition
To: ietf-mime-directory@imc.org
Subject: Registration of text/directory MIME type IMPP
Type name: IMPP
Type purpose: To specify the URI for instant messaging and presence
protocol communication with the object the vCard represents.
Type encoding: 8bit
Type value: A single URI. The type of the URI indicates the protocol
that can be used for this contact.
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
Type special notes: The type can include the type parameter "TYPE" to
specify an intended use for the URI. The TYPE parameter values can
include:
An indication of the type of communication for which this URI is
appropriate. This can be a value of PERSONAL or BUSINESS.
An indication of the location of a device associated with this URI.
Values can be HOME, WORK, or MOBILE.
An indication of some of the core capabilities of this instant
messaging system. Values can be PRES, VIDEO, VOICE, TEXT, SMS,
NUMERIC, and BEEP. PRES indicates the system supports some presence
protocol. VIDEO, VOICE, and TEXT indicate the system supports voice,
video, and text messaging respectively. SMS indicates short text
messages are supported. Short is not defined here, but something like
160 octets may be a reasonable assumption. NUMERIC indicates that
only numeric text messages are allowed. BEEP indicates that the only
information the system can deliver is that a message was sent to the
target user.
The value STORE indicates that the system can store messages for
future delivery to the intended user.
The value PREF indicates this is a preferred address and has the same
semantics as the PREF value in a TEL type.
4. Formal Grammar
The following ABNF grammar[4] extends the grammar found in RFC 2425
[1] and RFC 2426 [2].
;For name="IMPP"
param = impp-param ; Only impp parameters are allowed
value = uri
impp-param = "TYPE" "=" impp-type *("," impp-type)
impp-type = "PERSONAL" / "BUSINESS" / ; purpose of communications
"HOME" / "WORK" / "MOBILE" / ; useful?
"VIDEO" / "VOICE" / "TEXT" / ; core capabilities
"SMS" / "NUMERIC" / "BEEP" / "PRES" ; needed???
"STORE" / ; like MSG
"PREF" /
iana-token / x-name;
; Values are case insensitive
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
5. Example
BEGIN:vCard
VERSION:3.0
FN:John Doe
IMPP;TYPE=personal,text,store,pref:im:john@example.com
END:vCard
6. Open Issues
Are PERSONAL and BUSINESS a conflict in meaning with HOME and WORK?
In the TEL type HOME and WORK indicated a location, but they have
slowly come to be indicators that personal or business communication
is requested. Would a person with both a personal mobile phone and a
work mobile phone have HOME,MOBILE and WORK,MOBILE?
Is there any need for SMS, NUMERIC, BEEP? This is not a system for
negotiating capabilities and these seem like too fine detail. On the
other hand the existing vCard supports pagers and such, and these
definitions would help users avoid sending large messages to GSM cell
phones.
Is STORE needed? It mirrors the functionality of MSG in the TEL type
and is a feature supported by many IM systems.
7. IANA Considerations
Section 3 forms the IANA registration.
8. Security Considerations
This does not introduce additional security issues beyond current
vCard specification. It is worth noting that many people consider
their presence information more sensitive than some other address
information. Any system that stores or transfers vCards needs to
carefully consider the privacy issues around this information.
Normative References
[1] Howes, T., Smith, M. and F. Dawson, "A MIME -- --Content-Type
for Directory Information", RFC 2425, September 1998.
[2] Dawson, F. and T. Howes, "vCard MIME Directory Profile", RFC
2426, September 1998.
[3] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
Informational References
[4] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 2234, November 1997.
[5] Butcher, S., "Uniform Resource Locator Schemes for Internet
Relay Chat Servers", draft-butcher-irc-url-01 (work in
progress), October 2003.
[6] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A.,
Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M. and E. Schooler, "SIP:
Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002.
[7] Saint-Andre, P., "XMPP URI Format", draft-saintandre-xmpp-uri-00
(work in progress), September 2003.
[8] Peterson, J., "Common Profile for Presence (CPP)",
draft-ietf-impp-pres-03 (work in progress), May 2003.
[9] Peterson, J., "Common Profile for Instant Messaging (CPIM)",
draft-ietf-impp-im-03 (work in progress), May 2003.
Author's Address
Cullen Jennings
Cisco Systems
170 West Tasman Drive
MS: SJC-21/2
San Jose, CA 95134
USA
Phone: +1 408 902-3341
EMail: fluffy@cisco.com
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
Intellectual Property Statement
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it
has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the
IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and
standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of
claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of
licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to
obtain a general license or permission for the use of such
proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can
be obtained from the IETF Secretariat.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive
Director.
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft vCard-IMPP February 2004
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Jennings Expires August 14, 2004 [Page 7]