Subject: [VCARDDAV] vCard LDAP harmonization - individual draft submitted

From: Sly Gryphon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:57:50 +1000

G'day,

I have submitted an individual draft for mapping from LDAP to vCard
(draft-gryphon-ldap-schema-vcard4), which is on the charter for this
working group (but not really progressed much yet).

The base of the document was originally done for vCard 3.0 quite some
ago, but I have tried to update it for the vCard 4.0 drafts.

There is still some work to be done, e.g. the original draft had several
additional properties for vCard 3.0 which I have removed. There are
still a couple of properties in section 5, but really the entire section
5 should be removed and put into vCard 4.0 if they will go into vCard at
all. (I will make separate comments re this on vCard 4.0). Eventually
this document should contain only the LDAP-vCard mapping.

As has been pointed out, note that contact information (i.e. address
book/vCard) is conceptually different from directory information --
still it would be nice for having a mapping between the two.

The common usage scenarios I can think of are:
(1) mail agent or other system publishing information from an LDAP
directory into a vCard format,
(2) having a single UI present information from both a local address
book (presumably based on the fields from vCard) as well as from a
corporate directory - having some consistency in the fields would make
this presentation easier,
(3) using an LDAP directory for storing contact information.

Scenario (1) and (2) would use inetOrgPerson, or derivatives, possibly
extended with directoryCard information. Scenario (3) would just use
directoryCard.

I don't think a complete mapping is possible, because the two systems
are different, but it should be 'good enough'. i.e. specifying a
consistent method of generatig a vCard from directory information should
be the goal.

Sly (Stephen) Gryphon