Internet Draft Greg Vaudreuil Expires in six months Lucent Technologies Obsoletes: RFC 1911, RFC 2423 Glenn Parsons Nortel Networks February 1, 1999 MIME Sub-type Registrations for unified messaging Status of this Memo This document is an Internet Draft. Internet Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its Areas, and its Working Groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet Drafts. Internet Drafts are valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as a "work in progress". To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ftp.ietf.org (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. Overview This document describes the registration of the MIME sub-types multipart/voice-message and multipart/fax for use with the Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM) for Unified Messaging. It also introduces the primary content type concept. A further description of usage can be found in the VPIM v3 specification. Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 1] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 1. Abstract This document describes the registration of the MIME sub-types multipart/voice-message and multipart/fax for use with the Voice Profile for Internet Mail (VPIM) for Unified Messaging.. It also introduces the primary content type concept. A further description of usage can be found in the VPIM v3 specification [VPIM3]. This document revises earlier sub-type registrations in RFC 2423 [V-MSG] for [VPIM2] and RFC 1911 [VPIM1]. 2. VPIM v3 Scope The VPIM v3 specification defines a profile of the Internet Mail protocols for use between unified or universal platforms. These platforms are intended to be full Internet Mail platforms with the ability to handle voice and fax media as well. Historically, voice, fax and email have existed on separate systems. Recently, email profiles have been created for both voice [VPIM2] and fax [IFAX] but these are restrictive to only that media and special- purpose computer systems they were intended for. VPIM v3 lifts these restrictions, but to facilitate efficient unified messaging benefits a primary content type semantic must be provided by multipart/voice-message and multipart/fax. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [REQ]. 3. Unified Messaging Interchange Though many systems can send and receive messages containing many different media (as different content types within a multipart/mixed), all the media are given an equal importance. That is, a message with a voice, fax and spreadsheet attachment may be sent from a system to recipients on many different systems (with different capabilities). If the message was sent to a voice messaging system, and the primary content of the message was the voice Ï the fax and spreadsheet were merely FYI Ï the message would not be delivered because the other contents could not be rendered. However, if the message was identified as being primarily a voice message, the receiving voice-only system could detect that and deliver the voice but discard the informational attachments. Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 2] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 Additionally, the use of this content type will allow unified messaging systems to view the message as intended (e.g., as a voice message using a plug-in). This could give the user the voice message (or fax message) interface Ï which would likely be slightly different than the generic view. Described below are two content types intended as a wrapper to indicate the semantic of primary content type. When used they MUST be the top level content of that message.. 3.1 multipart/voice-message The MIME sub-type multipart/voice-message is re-defined to hold an audio content and any number of other content type as described in [VPIM3]. Essentially, the sub-type provides a simple wrapper that easily identifies the entire content as being the components of a single voice message. The sub-type is similar in semantics and syntax to multipart/mixed, as defined in [MIME2]. The difference introduced in this revision is that the primary content of this multipart is voice (audio/*). As such, it may be safely interpreted as a multipart/mixed by systems that do not understand the sub-type (only the identification as being a voice message would be lost). If a receiving system downgrades an incoming message (i.e., drops non-voice contents for delivery), a appropriate non-delivery message MUST be sent to the originator indicating that contents were deleted to deliver the primary voice content. In addition to the MIME required boundary parameter, a version parameter is also REQUIRED for this sub-type. This is to distinguish this refinement of the sub-type from the previous definition in [VPIM1] and [V-MSG]. The value of the version parameter is "3.0" if the content conforms to the requirements of [VPIM3]. The default version value (when the parameter is missing) is 1, indicating the content conforms to the requirements of [VPIM1]. Note: [VPIM2] describes the restriction that only specific media types applicable to voice messaging (audio/*, image/*, message/rfc822 and application/directory), are valid Õnext-levelØ contents of this sub-type (when version=2.0). Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 3] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 3.2 multipart/fax The MIME sub-type multipart/fax is defined to hold a fax image as described in [IFAX] and any number of other content types. Essentially, the sub-type provides a simple wrapper that easily identifies the entire content as being the components of a single fax message. The sub-type is similar in semantics and syntax to multipart/mixed, as defined in [MIME2]. The difference is that the primary content of this multipart is fax (image/tiff). As such, it may be safely interpreted as a multipart/mixed by systems that do not understand the sub-type (only the identification as being a fax message would be lost). If a receiving system downgrades an incoming message (i.e., drops non-voice contents for delivery), a appropriate non-delivery message MUST be sent to the originator indicating that contents were deleted to deliver the primary voice content. 4. IANA Registration 4.1 multipart/voice-message To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type multipart/voice-message MIME media type name: multipart MIME subtype name: voice-message Required parameters: boundary, version The use of boundary is defined in [MIME2] The version parameter contains the value "3.0" if the enclosed content conforms to [VPIM3]. The version parameter contains the value "2.0" if the enclosed content conforms to [VPIM2]. The absence of this parameter indicates conformance to the previous version defined in RFC 1911 [VPIM1]. Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: 7bit, 8bit or Binary Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 4] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 Security considerations: This definition identifies the content as being a voice message. In some environments (though likely not the majority), the loss of the anonymity of the content may be a security issue. Interoperability considerations: Systems developed to conform with [VPIM1] and [VPIM2] may not conform to this registration. Specifically, there may be unrenderable content types received, in this case the recipient system should NDN the message. Also the VPIM v1 positional identification will likely be lost. Published specification: This document [VPIM2] [VPIM3] Applications which use this media type: Primarily unified messaging Additional information: Magic number(s): ? File extension(s): .VPM Macintosh File Type Code(s): VPIM Person & email address to contact for further information: Glenn W. Parsons Glenn.Parsons@NortelNetworks.com Gregory M. Vaudreuil GregV@Lucent.Com Intended usage: COMMON Author/Change controller: Glenn W. Parsons & Gregory M. Vaudreuil Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 5] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 4.2 multpart/fax-message To: ietf-types@iana.org Subject: Registration of MIME media type multipart/fax-message MIME media type name: multipart MIME subtype name: fax-message Required parameters: boundary, version The use of boundary is defined in [MIME2] The version parameter that contains the value "1.0" if enclosed content conforms to [IFAX]. Optional parameters: none Encoding considerations: 7bit, 8bit or Binary Security considerations: This definition identifies the content as being a fax message. In some environments (though likely not the majority), the loss of the anonymity of the content may be a security issue. Interoperability considerations: Systems developed strictly to conform with [IFAX] may not be able to receive multipart/fax-message (though this should be treate as multipart/mixed). In this case, interoperability would fail. Published specification: This document [IFAX] [VPIM3] Applications which use this media type: Primarily fax capable unified messaging systems. Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 6] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 Additional information: Magic number(s): ? File extension(s): .FAX Macintosh File Type Code(s): FAX Person & email address to contact for further information: Glenn W. Parsons Glenn.Parsons@NortelNetworks.com Gregory M. Vaudreuil GregV@Lucent.Com Intended usage: COMMON Author/Change controller: Glenn W. Parsons & Gregory M. Vaudreuil 5. AuthorsØ Addresses Glenn W. Parsons Nortel Networks P.O. Box 3511, Station C Ottawa, ON K1Y 4H7 Canada Phone: +1-613-763-7582 Fax: +1-613-763-4461 Glenn.Parsons@NortelNetworks.com Gregory M. Vaudreuil Lucent Technologies 17080 Dallas Parkway Dallas, TX 75248-1905 United States Phone/Fax: +1-972-733-2722 GregV@Lucent.Com 6. References [MIME2] N. Freed and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types ", RFC 2046, Innosoft, First Virtual, Nov 1996. [MIME4] N. Freed and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures", RFC 2048, Innosoft, First Virtual, Nov 1996. Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 7] Internet Draft VPIM UM February 1, 1999 [VPIM1] Vaudreuil, Greg, "Voice Profile for Internet Mail", RFC 1911, Feb 1996. [VPIM2] Greg Vaudreuil and Glenn Parsons, "Voice Profile for Internet Mail - version 2", RFC 2026, September 1998. [VPIM3] Work in Progress, "Voice Profile for Internet Mail - version 3", , February 1999. [V-MSG] Greg Vaudreuil and Glenn Parsons, "VPIM Voice Message: MIME Sub-type Registration", RFC 2423, September 1998. [REQ] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" ,RFC 2119, March 1997. [IFAX] Toyoda et al., "A Simple Mode of Facsimile Using Internet Mail", RFC 2305, March 1998. 7. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implmentation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE." Vaudreuil, Parsons Expires 8/1/99 [Page 8]