RFC 3860 (rfc3860) - Page 2 of 13

Common Profile for Instant Messaging (CPIM)

RFC 3860                          CPIM                       August 2004


   A.  IM URI IANA Registration Template  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.1.  URI Scheme Name  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.2.  URI Scheme Syntax  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.3.  Character Encoding Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.4.  Intended Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.5.  Applications and/or Protocols which use this URI Scheme
             Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       A.7.  Relevant Publications  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       A.8.  Person & Email Address to Contact for Further
             Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       A.9.  Author/Change Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       A.10. Applications and/or Protocols which use this URI Scheme
             Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   B.  Issues of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       B.1.  Address Mapping  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       B.2.  Source-Route Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   C.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

1.  Introduction

   Instant messaging is defined in RFC 2778 [5].  At the time this
   document was written, numerous instant messaging protocols are in
   use, and little interoperability between services based on these
   protocols has been achieved.  This specification defines semantics
   and data formats for common services of instant messaging to
   facilitate the creation of gateways between instant messaging
   services: a common profile for instant messaging (CPIM).

   Service behavior is described abstractly in terms of operations
   invoked between the consumer and provider of a service.  Accordingly,
   each IM service must specify how this behavior is mapped onto its own
   protocol interactions.  The choice of strategy is a local matter,
   providing that there is a clear relation between the abstract
   behaviors of the service (as specified in this memo) and how it is
   faithfully realized by a particular instant messaging service.  For
   example, one strategy might transmit an instant message as textual
   key/value pairs, another might use a compact binary representation,
   and a third might use nested containers.

   The attributes for each operation are defined using an abstract
   syntax.  Although the syntax specifies the range of possible data
   values, each IM service must specify how well-formed instances of the
   abstract representation are encoded as a concrete series of bits.





Peterson                    Standards Track