Subject: sip-pip status

From: Peter Coates <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 16:20:30 -0800

The current sip-pip draft does not contain anything to indicate a potential
recipient's willingness to engage in particular forms of communication.
For some types of communication (eg email) the recipient's state is not
particularly of relevance, although "on vacation back on the 4th" might be
useful, even if it conveys information some people might not be willing to
divulge.

For instant messaging, on the other hand, there may be several states.  ICQ,
for instance, has 9:

offline,
invisible,
Do not disturb
occupied
not available
away
free for chat
available
available for random chat.

I am not suggesting that we slavishly follow this model, but it is clearly
useful to the person intending to send a message to know how much of an
intrusion the message would be as well as whether or not the message will
actually get through.  Indeed the ICQ information is confused about
availability (online/offline) and mood (available/occupied/do not disturb).

I would suggest that the status for a recipient in a pip server has to
contain contact location, contact status, and contact "mood".  Further that
this information be considered the base information on which the information
reported back to a subscriber be based: obviously one wants to be able to
lie to chosen subscribers about mood or status (or location).

Given this, and that mood is likely to change at least as often as status
(and more often than location), I would suggest that the use of the sip
contact: header is inadequate for the purpose, and that it is imperative
that the putative "text/presence" mime type be defined.

As an aside, why the different languages for Call processing
(ietf-iptel-cpl-requirements-00.txt and email filtering
(draft-showalter-sieve-04.txt)?  It seems to me that the basic requirements
are similar.

Peter Coates.

---

From: Jonathan Rosenberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 1999 02:13:40 -0500

First off, confctrl is the wrong list for this discussion. Presence and
instant messaging are being disussed on the impp list, which I have
cc'ed. In addition, the impp work is not yet at the point for details
like those you mention below. They are currently working through privacy
and security requirements.

> availability (online/offline) and mood (available/occupied/do not disturb).

I personally don't see a lot of value in these moods; I can either
contact you or I cannot. Whether its because you've turned on "Do not
disturb" or "occupied" is irrelevant. But, I see why some people like
it, and in one of my slides (but maybe not in the pip-sip draft), I
mention the use of a Contact attribute for this:

Contact: <im:[email-masked]>;mood="DO Not Disturb"

Easy enough.

> that the putative "text/presence" mime type be defined.

The draft mentions (I think) that the Contact headers are a simple form
of presence. More complex stuff that would possibly require
text/presence should use text/presence. But, I don't see "moods" as the
killer motivator for a complex presence format. Things like "I'm
available by email from 2pm to 4pm if its urgent, otherwise phone" are
clearly unrealizable with the Contact header and those will likely
require the format.

Defining the presence format is one of the things on the current impp
charter, I believe.

> (draft-showalter-sieve-04.txt)?  It seems to me that the basic requirements

This issue belongs neither on confctrl or impp, but rather iptel
([email-masked]). I would recommend you start a
thread there if you want.

-Jonathan R.

-- 
Jonathan D. Rosenberg                       Lucent Technologies
Member of Technical Staff                   101 Crawfords Corner Rd.
High Speed Networks Research                Holmdel, NJ 07733
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EMAIL: [email-masked]
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