Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. Cauchie Request for Comments: 6715 France Telecom - Orange Category: Standards Track B. Leiba ISSN: 2070-1721 K. Li Huawei Technologies August 2012
vCard Format Extensions: Representing vCard Extensions Defined by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Converged Address Book (CAB) Group
Abstract
This document defines extensions to the vCard data format for representing and exchanging certain contact information. The properties covered here have been defined by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) Converged Address Book group, in order to synchronize, using OMA Data Synchronization, contact fields that were not already defined in the base vCard 4.0 specification.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6715.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2 1.1. A Brief Introduction to the Converged Address Book .........2 1.2. Terminology Used in This Document ..........................3 2. vCard Extensions: Properties ....................................3 2.1. Property: EXPERTISE ........................................3 2.2. Property: HOBBY ............................................4 2.3. Property: INTEREST .........................................5 2.4. Property: ORG-DIRECTORY ....................................6 3. vCard Extensions: Parameters ....................................7 3.1. Parameter: INDEX ...........................................7 3.2. Parameter: LEVEL ...........................................8 4. Security Considerations .........................................8 5. IANA Considerations .............................................9 6. Acknowledgments .................................................9 7. References .....................................................10 7.1. Normative References ......................................10 7.2. Informative References ....................................10
Synchronization of an Open Mobile Alliance Converged Address Book [OMA-CAB], using Open Mobile Alliance Data Synchronization [OMA-DS], commonly uses vCard as an exchange format between the DS Server and the DS Client. In order to properly perform synchronization of an OMA-CAB, the CAB specification defines some CAB contact fields not already defined in the vCard base specification. This document reuses the definitions found in the OMA-CAB specification and describes them as vCard extensions. The following sections define the necessary Properties and Parameters.
1.1. A Brief Introduction to the Converged Address Book
The Converged Address Book (CAB) Enabler provides consistent mechanisms to manage contact information both in user-facing applications and in support of network-facing activities. At the core of this enabler is a network-based contact repository in which a user can store contact information. That information can be retrieved by any CAB-enabled device. The network-based repository is also able to provide specific contact information to other users and to keep their copies up to date whenever the information is changed.
The CAB Enabler provides synchronization of the contact information available in the user device(s) with the network-based contact repository.
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The CAB Enabler also manages the distribution of a user's own contact information. In essence, a user fills out a Personal Contact Card, which includes all the information a user wishes to store about himself or herself.
Because systems that are supporting the CAB Enabler are likely supporting multiple users, the CAB Enabler also defines a search paradigm that permits other users to query those systems to locate information about the available users.
The CAB Enabler supports many different types of information. It therefore has a data model that is flexible and extensible. It manages traditional types of contact information (such as name, address, email, phone number, mobile number) as well as new types of information (such as websites, blogs, presence subscription references).
Syntax specifications shown here use the augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) as described in [RFC5234] and are specified as in the base vCard specification [RFC6350].
Note: Some string-value vCard properties are defined herein for which no specific list of allowed strings is specified. For those properties, it is intended that de facto taxonomies might develop. One vCard can, for example, specify a hobby of "philately", while another uses "stamp collecting", and a third has "old postage stamps". Usage, not specification, may lead to a preference over time for a single term. In general, these are meant to be understood by humans, rather than to be used for automated categorization that might require standard terms and registries.
Purpose: To specify a field of expertise for the object to which the vCard refers.
Value type: A single text value.
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Cardinality: *
Property parameters: LEVEL (possible values: "beginner", "average", "expert"), INDEX
Description: This is intended to be a free-form naming of fields of expertise, meant for human consumption, and no specific expertise fields are defined. See the note at the beginning of Section 2.
Purpose: To specify the hobbies of the object to which the vCard refers.
Value type: A single text value.
Cardinality: *
Property parameters: LEVEL (possible values: "high", "medium", "low"), INDEX
Description: This is intended to be a free-form naming of hobbies, meant for human consumption, and no specific hobbies are defined. See the note at the beginning of Section 2.
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A hobby, as opposed to an interest (see Section 2.3), is an activity that one actively engages in for entertainment, intellectual stimulation, creative expression, or the like.
* "Art" might be a hobby if one actively sculpts or paints.
* "Tennis" might be a hobby if one enjoys playing, rather than just watching, matches.
Purpose: To specify the interest(s) of the object to which the vCard refers.
Value type: A single text value
Cardinality: *
Property parameters: LEVEL (possible values: "high", "medium", "low"), INDEX
Description: This is intended to be a free-form naming of interests, meant for human consumption, and no specific interests are defined. See the note at the beginning of Section 2.
An interest, as opposed to a hobby (see Section 2.2), is an activity or topic that one finds interesting but doesn't necessarily actively engage in.
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* "Art" might be an interest if one likes looking at art but doesn't create art.
* "Tennis" might be an interest if one enjoys watching matches but doesn't play.
Purpose: To specify a directory of an organization to which the vCard's entity belongs.
Value type: A single URI value.
Cardinality: *
Property parameters: PREF, INDEX
Description: This is intended to be a URI that can be used to do an organization-directory lookup. Presumably, the entity the vCard represents would be found in the directory, though that isn't required. This might be used to make it easier to find someone's coworkers, management chain, and so on, in a company or organizational directory.
How the lookup is done depends upon the URI scheme, and no attempt is made here to specify details of the lookup mechanism. An HTTP URI might, for example, lead
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to a web form that's intended for manual lookup in a browser; thus, this URI might or might not be usable for automated lookup or searching.
Purpose: Used in a multi-valued property to indicate the position of this value within the set of values.
Description: When a property is multi-valued, INDEX can be used to indicate an ordering or sequence of the values. INDEX values must be strictly positive. Zero is not allowed.
Thanks to Simon Perreault, Peter Saint-Andre, Cyrus Daboo, and Chris Newman for particularly thorough reviews, which led to a much cleaner submission to the working group.
[OMA-CAB] Open Mobile Alliance, "Converged Address Book (CAB) Specification", October 2010, <http:// www.openmobilealliance.org/Technical/release_program/docs/ CopyrightClick.aspx?pck=CAB&file=V1_0-20101019-C/ OMA-TS-CAB-V1_0-20101019-C.pdf>.
Candidate Version 1.0, OMA-TS-CAB-V1_0-20101019-C
[OMA-DS] Open Mobile Alliance, "DS Protocol", March 2009, <http:// www.openmobilealliance.org/Technical/release_program/docs/ copyrightclick.aspx?pck=DS&file=V1_2_2-20090319-A/ OMA-TS-DS_Protocol-V1_2_2-20090319-A.pdf>.
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Authors' Addresses
Dany Cauchie France Telecom - Orange 2 Avenue Pierre Marzin Lannion 22307 France