Subject: WG Review: SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging (simple)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 14:05:38 -0500

A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Applications Area.
The IESG has not made any determination as yet. 

The following Description was submitted, and is provided for
informational purposes only:

SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging (simple)
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 Current Status: Proposed Working Group

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Description of Working Group:
 
This working group focuses on the application of the Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP, RFC 2543) to the suite of services
collectively known as instant messaging and presence (IMP). The IETF
has committed to producing an interoperable standard for these
services compatible with the requirements detailed in RFC 2779 and
in the Common Presence and Instant Messaging (CPIM) specification,
developed within the IMPP working group. As the
most common services for which SIP is used share quite a bit in common
with IMP, the adaptation of SIP to IMP seems a natural choice given
the widespread support for (and relative maturity of) the SIP standard.

The primary work of this group will be to generate:

1. A proposed standard SIP extension documenting the transport of
   Instant Messages in SIP, compliant to the requirements for IM
   outlined in RFC 2779 and in CPIM. The extension will document
   the mappings from its operations to CPIM.

2. One or more proposed standard SIP extensions documenting a
   subscription and notification service within SIP, used to support
   presence, compliant to the requirements for presence outlined in
   RFC 2779 and CPIM. The extension will document
   the mappings from its operations to CPIM.

The working group will work within the framework for presence and IM
described in RFC 2778. The extensions it defines must also be
compliant with the SIP processes for extensions. The group cannot modify
baseline SIP behavior or define a new version of SIP for IM and
presence. If the group determines that new security capabilities are
needed from SIP, the group will seek to define such extensions within
the SIP working group, and then use them here.

The working group will operate in close cooperation with the IMPP
working group, which will be completing CPIM in parallel. The working
group will also cooperate with any other groups defined to standardize
other presence and IM systems, to ensure maximum sharing of
information and avoid reinvention of the wheel. The working group will
cooperate with the SIP working group, soliciting reviews to ensure its
extensions meet SIPs requirements. The working group will also
collaborate with SIP and PINT to ensure consistent operation of the
SUBSCRIBE and NOTIFY method across the other applications being
defined for its use.