Subject: [VCARDDAV] [Fwd: Notes from VCardDAV BOF]

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 12:43:33 +0200

Dear all,

Attached minutes that Lisa took for the vcarddav BOF at IETF 69.  The 
BoF chairs would like to thank those who participated, and in 
particular, the presenters.  If you attended, could you please take a 
moment to review Lisa's notes?  These will be the basis for the BoF minutes.

Regards,

Eliot

Subject: Notes from VCardDAV BOF
From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
To: "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>, Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>, Chris Newman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:11:43 -0500

VCardDAV BoF

1.  Cyrus Daboo presented "VCard Issues".

Even though VCARD 3.0 has been around for nine years, many mobile  
devices still use the old 2.1 specification, either alone or with non- 
IETF extensions.  Some of the issues a WG could deal with include a  
lack of internationalization support, a few issues that have been  
found to be ambiguous, and a clear extensibility model.

Cyrus proposes to do one new document merging RFC2425 and RFC2426  
into one, in which extensions become part of the core proposal.  A  
new MIME type could advertise proper UTF/8 support.  An XML-based  
variant of vCard would be good to define -- one in which the  
semantics are identical and mapping can be automated -- because XML- 
formatted vCards are already in use at least in XMPP.

Announcement: vCard workshop is planned by the CalConnect consortium,  
September 18th 2007 (see http://www.calconnect.org/ 
vcardworkshop.shtml  ).

2.  Cyrus Daboo on CardDAV

Generally, an access protocol for vCard could easily follow the model  
of CalDAV.  There's already been some comments leading to somewhat  
different syntax, but no argument over the basic architecture. Some  
of the longstanding WebDAV functional alternatives come up here  
again, like HTTP caching and whether the data of a vcard should be  
treated as resource content (body) or properties (metadata).

Both CalDAV and CardDAV could use better synchronization  
functionality.  One approach is described in draft-daboo-webdav- 
sync-00, which also covers non-application-specific use cases.  A  
feature that would avoid polling the server to see changes would be  
good too.  Otherwise, CardDAV would actually be simpler than CalDAV  
because there are fewer complicating issues such as recurrences and  
timezones.

A mailing list has been set up at [email-masked].
Comments:
  - Rohan Mahy pointed out the draft he authored with notification  
mechanisms for HTTP resources, which could apply to WebDAV  
collections or CardDAV resources.

3.  Alexey Melnikov: LDAP and vCard

Could we use LDAP as an access protocol for vCards?  It's good for  
partial retrieval of this kind of information.  Many vCard properties  
map one-to-one to standard LDAP attributes already.

On the other hand, vCard allows all kinds of extensibility which LDAP  
does not.  Similarly there are LDAP attributes that can't be  
represented in vCard. The InetOrgPerson is the closest LDAP object  
class to a vCard, and this is not a standard (although that could be  
fixed).

Perhaps most importantly on the "con" side of using LDAP for this  
purpose, write access is not common on LDAP servers.  It's a matter  
of policy often to keep corporate directory information carefully  
regulated.  We assume that we'll need write access so that people can  
store their address books containing all kinds of arbitrary entries,  
not just corporate directory entries.

People's address books, today commonly stored locally in vCard format  
and varations, commonly contain not only cards for people and  
organizations and places well beyond just one organization, but they  
also contain more than one contact number or address for certain  
people.  LDAP is more tailored to one organization, so it does not  
provide a natural way of providing both a "work" and  a "home"  
address for an individual.

Comments
  - Cyrus Daboo pointed out that we will need vCard mapping.  A  
system where the LDAP directory is exposed as a read-only address  
book in CardDAV is quite easy to imagine.  Alexey added that there  
are already email clients that can fetch address books from LDAP  
although they can't edit those.
  - Kurt Zeilenga says that LDAP is good for storing blobs, but as  
soon as you want to do stuf with blobs it's not as good.
  - Dave Crocker asked a clarification of whether we were proposing  
of defining a generic vCard/LDAP mapping to support existing use  
cases, but not turn LDAP into a data model for storing an address  
book because it would be a crippled mechanism.  Asked for  
clarification of the LDAP writeability issue.
  - Leif Johansen asked about whether mappings can be completely  
automated?

4.  Discussion of Proposed Charter

The charter was posted to the Apps Discuss mailing list.  Chris asked  
that it be reposted to the vcarddav mailing list.  Kurt pointed out  
that we may get participation from people not yet in this room, at  
the CalConnect workshop and from OMA.

Comments:
  - ??? questioned
  - Cyrus Daboo points out that there will be OMA people at the  
CalConnect workshop.
  - Rohan Mahy: The charter needs to say whether synchronization is  
in or out of scope.

CONSENSUS CALLs:

CALL: Is this work that is appropriate for the IETF to undertake?   
Consensus in favour.

CALL: Who in this room will actively contribute to the effort if it  
becomes an IETF effort?  Significant portion of the room was  
interested in contributing.

CALL: Is the LDAP mapping appropriate IETF work? Consensus yes.

CALL: Who would contribute? Only a couple hands.

CALL: Is developing a vCard access protocol IETF work?  Consensus yes

CALL: Who would contribute?  half dozen hands.

Pete Resnick, Alexey Melnikov and Dave Crocker volunteered to edit  
the vCard base spec.

Eliot asked also for volunteers for a chair of the WG to speak to  
Chris Newman.  Chris will be looking for a process chair and a newbie  
chair.

_______________________________________________
VCARDDAV mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vcarddav

---

From: Marc Blanchet <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 23:48:06 -0400

- minutes sounds fine to me.
- updated the mini-vccardav web page (http://www.viagenie.ca/projects/ 
carddav) with a link to this email.
- question to Chris and Lisa: are we having a wg?

Marc.

Le 07-08-14 à 06:43, Eliot Lear a écrit :

> Dear all,
>
> Attached minutes that Lisa took for the vcarddav BOF at IETF 69.   
> The BoF chairs would like to thank those who participated, and in  
> particular, the presenters.  If you attended, could you please take  
> a moment to review Lisa's notes?  These will be the basis for the  
> BoF minutes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eliot
>
> De : Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
> Date : 26 juillet 2007 17:11:43 HAE
> À : "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <[email-masked]>, Eliot Lear  
> <[email-masked]>, Chris Newman <[email-masked]>
> Objet : Notes from VCardDAV BOF
>
>
> VCardDAV BoF
>
> devices still use the old 2.1 specification, either alone or with  
> non-IETF extensions.  Some of the issues a WG could deal with  
> include a lack of internationalization support, a few issues that  
> have been found to be ambiguous, and a clear extensibility model.
>
> Announcement: vCard workshop is planned by the CalConnect  
> consortium, September 18th 2007 (see http://www.calconnect.org/ 
> vcardworkshop.shtml  ).
>
> Generally, an access protocol for vCard could easily follow the  
> model of CalDAV.  There's already been some comments leading to  
> somewhat different syntax, but no argument over the basic  
> architecture. Some of the longstanding WebDAV functional  
> alternatives come up here again, like HTTP caching and whether the  
> data of a vcard should be treated as resource content (body) or  
> properties (metadata).
>
> partial retrieval of this kind of information.  Many vCard  
> properties map one-to-one to standard LDAP attributes already.
>
> On the other hand, vCard allows all kinds of extensibility which  
> LDAP does not.  Similarly there are LDAP attributes that can't be  
> class to a vCard, and this is not a standard (although that could  
> be fixed).
>
> regulated.  We assume that we'll need write access so that people  
> can store their address books containing all kinds of arbitrary  
> entries, not just corporate directory entries.
>
> People's address books, today commonly stored locally in vCard  
> format and varations, commonly contain not only cards for people  
> and organizations and places well beyond just one organization, but  
> they also contain more than one contact number or address for  
> certain people.  LDAP is more tailored to one organization, so it  
> does not provide a natural way of providing both a "work" and  a  
> "home" address for an individual.
>
> Comments
> The charter was posted to the Apps Discuss mailing list.  Chris  
> asked that it be reposted to the vcarddav mailing list.  Kurt  
> pointed out that we may get participation from people not yet in  
> this room, at the CalConnect workshop and from OMA.
>
> Comments:
>  - ??? questioned
> Chris Newman.  Chris will be looking for a process chair and a  
> newbie chair.
>
>

-----
IPv6 book: Migrating to IPv6, Wiley, 2006, http://www.ipv6book.ca

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:31:39 +0200

Marc Blanchet wrote:
> - updated the mini-vccardav web page 
> (http://www.viagenie.ca/projects/carddav) with a link to this email.

Before Chris and Lisa answer this, let me just add that there while the 
room wasn't packed, there is growing interest in this from other groups 
such as CalConnect, and that it is clear that Chris and Lisa are paying 
attention to what goes on there.  Also, it helps quite a bit that Cyrus 
has a draft for vcarddav.  There probably needs to be at least some 
discussion of a charter based on the consensus calls, as well as the 
results of the vcarddav workshop next month.  And of course we'll need a 
document editor or two for the vcard spec draft that will target PS.

Regards,

Eliot