From: The IESG To: IETF-Announce Message-Id: Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 15:53:03 -0400 Cc: Internet Architecture Board , simple mailing list , RFC Editor Subject: [Simple] Protocol Action: 'The Extensible Markup Language (XML) Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP)' to Proposed Standard The IESG has approved the following document: - 'The Extensible Markup Language (XML) Configuration Access Protocol (XCAP) ' as a Proposed Standard This document is the product of the SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Ted Hardie and Scott Hollenbeck. A URL of this Internet-Draft is: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-simple-xcap-07.txt Technical Summary In many communications applications, such as Voice over IP, instant messaging, and presence, it is necessary for network servers to access per-user information in the process of servicing a request. While this per-user information resides on servers within the network, it is managed by the end user themselves. Management can be done through many access points, including the web, a wireless handset, or a PC application. Among these per-user information stores are presence lists and authorization policiies, requirements for which have been specified by the SIMPLE working group. This specification describes a protocol that can be used to manipulate this per-user data. XCAP is essentially a set of conventions for mapping XML documents and document components into HTTP URLs, rules for how the modification of one resource affects another, data validation constraints, and authorization policies associated with access to those resources. Because of this structure, normal HTTP primitives can be used to manipulate the data. XCAP is meant to support the configuration needs for a multiplicity of applications, rather than just a single one. It is not, however, a general purpose XML search protocol or XML database update protocol. Working Group Summary The working group came to consensus on this approach after significant discussion of the trade-offs. Adoption of an existing specification, like XPATH, was considered, but the balance of capabilities did not seem right to the working group; insteada more restricted set of capabilities tuned to this specific use case was agreed. There were comments during the Last Call period, and this document reflects changes made to handle the issues raised. Protocol Quality This document was reviewed for the IESG by Ted Hardie.