7Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) P. Saint-Andre
8Request for Comments: 6473 Cisco
9Category: Standards Track December 2011
13 vCard KIND:application
17 This document defines a value of "application" for the vCard KIND
18 property so that vCards can be used to represent software
23 This is an Internet Standards Track document.
25 This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
26 (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
27 received public review and has been approved for publication by the
28 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
29 Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
31 Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
32 and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
33 http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6473.
37 Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
38 document authors. All rights reserved.
40 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
41 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
42 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
43 publication of this document. Please review these documents
44 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
45 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
46 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
47 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
48 described in the Simplified BSD License.
58Saint-Andre Standards Track [Page 1]
60RFC 6473 vCard KIND:application December 2011
65 1. Introduction ....................................................2
66 2. Meaning .........................................................2
67 3. Example .........................................................4
68 4. IANA Considerations .............................................4
69 5. Security Considerations .........................................4
70 6. Acknowledgements ................................................5
71 7. References ......................................................5
72 7.1. Normative References .......................................5
73 7.2. Informative References .....................................5
77 Version 4 of the vCard specification [RFC6350] defines a new KIND
78 property to specify the type of entity that a vCard represents.
79 During its work on the base vCard4 specification, the VCARDDAV
80 Working Group defined values of "individual", "organization",
81 "group", and "location" for the KIND property. The working group
82 considered but then removed a value of "thing" to represent any type
83 of physical entity, machine, software application, etc., with the
84 expectation that such a value might be defined in a vCard extension.
85 This document does not define a generic "thing" value but instead
86 defines a more narrow "application" value so that vCards can be used
87 to represent software applications.
91 When the KIND property has a value of "application", the vCard
92 represents a software application such as a server, an online service
93 (e.g., a chat room), or an automated software bot. More formally, an
94 "application" is functionally equivalent to the 'applicationProcess'
95 object class used in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
96 [RFC4519] as derived from the Open Systems Interconnection model
97 [X.521] [X.200]. As one example of the "application" KIND, vCards
98 are currently used in the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
99 [RFC6120] to represent instant messaging servers that are deployed on
102 The properties included in an application's vCard apply to one of the
105 o The application itself (e.g., the FN property might represent the
106 friendly name of an application service, the URL property might
107 represent a website that contains further information about the
108 service, and the ADR, GEO, and TZ properties might represent the
109 physical address, geographical location, and time zone of the
110 machine where the service is hosted).
114Saint-Andre Standards Track [Page 2]
116RFC 6473 vCard KIND:application December 2011
119 o An organization or person that makes the application available on
120 the network (e.g., the LOGO property might represent the corporate
121 logo of a service provider).
123 o A person or role that maintains the application (e.g., the TEL,
124 EMAIL, and IMPP properties might represent ways to contact a
125 server administrator).
127 When a property represents some aspect of the application itself, it
128 makes no sense to include the "work" and "home" values of the TYPE
129 parameter since software applications do not have work places and
130 personal lives (see the definition of the TYPE parameter in Section
131 5.6 of [RFC6350]). When a property represents information about an
132 individual associated with the application (e.g., an individual
133 service administrator as opposed to a generic service administrator
134 role or an associated organization), inclusion of the "work" and
135 "home" values can be appropriate.
137 The following base properties make sense for vCards that represent
138 software applications (this list is not exhaustive, and other
139 properties might be applicable as well):
159 Although it might be desirable to define a more fine-grained taxonomy
160 of applications (e.g., a KIND of "application" with a subtype of
161 "server" or "IM server"), such a taxonomy is out of the scope of this
170Saint-Andre Standards Track [Page 3]
172RFC 6473 vCard KIND:application December 2011
177 The following example of an Extensible Messaging and Presence
178 Protocol (XMPP) server is borrowed from [XEP-0292]. The XML
179 representation of the vCard is described in [RFC6351], which allows
180 for the use of the new "application" value using the "iana-token"
181 production defined in [RFC6350].
183 <vcard xmlns="urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:vcard-4.0">
184 <fn><text>jabber.org IM service</text></fn>
185 <url><uri>http://www.jabber.org/</uri></url>
187 <parameters><pref><integer>1</integer></pref></parameters>
188 <language-tag>en</language-tag>
190 <email><text>xmpp@jabber.org</text></email>
191 <impp><uri>xmpp:jabber.org</uri></impp>
192 <logo><uri>http://www.jabber.org/images/logo.png</uri></logo>
193 <geo><uri>geo:42.25,-91.05</uri></geo>
194 <tz><text>America/Chicago</text></tz>
195 <source><uri>xmpp:jabber.org?vcard</uri></source>
196 <rev><timestamp>19990104T122100Z</timestamp></rev>
197 <kind><text>application</text></kind>
2004. IANA Considerations
202 IANA has added "application" to the registry of property values for
203 vCard4. In conformance with Section 10.2.6 of [RFC6350], the
204 registration is as follows, where the reference is to RFC 6473.
208 Purpose: The entity represented by the vCard is a software
209 application (e.g., a server, an online service such as a chat
210 room, or an automated software bot).
212 Conformance: This value can be used with the KIND property.
214 Example: See Section 3 of RFC 6473.
2165. Security Considerations
218 Use of vCards to represent software applications is not envisioned to
219 introduce security considerations beyond those specified for vCards
220 in general as described in [RFC6350].
226Saint-Andre Standards Track [Page 4]
228RFC 6473 vCard KIND:application December 2011
233 Thanks to Cyrus Daboo, Barry Leiba, Kepeng Li, and Simon Perreault
2387.1. Normative References
240 [RFC6350] Perreault, S., "vCard Format Specification", RFC 6350,
2437.2. Informative References
245 [RFC4519] Sciberras, A., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
246 (LDAP): Schema for User Applications", RFC 4519,
249 [RFC6120] Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
250 Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, March 2011.
252 [RFC6351] Perreault, S., "xCard: vCard XML Representation",
253 RFC 6351, August 2011.
255 [X.200] International Telecommunications Union, "Information
256 Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Basic
257 Reference Model: The Basic Model", ITU-T Recommendation
258 X.200, ISO Standard 7498-1, July 1994.
260 [X.521] International Telecommunications Union, "Information
261 Technology - Open Systems Interconnection - The
262 Directory: Selected Object Classes", ITU-T Recommendation
263 X.521, ISO Standard 9594-7, November 2008.
265 [XEP-0292] Saint-Andre, P. and S. Mizzi, "vCard4 over XMPP", XSF
266 XEP 0292, October 2011.
272 1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600
276 Phone: +1-303-308-3282
277 EMail: psaintan@cisco.com
282Saint-Andre Standards Track [Page 5]