summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/doc/openmicroblogging.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorEvan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name>2008-05-22 14:34:21 -0400
committerEvan Prodromou <evan@prodromou.name>2008-05-22 14:34:21 -0400
commiteecd611f678febabe1d62d5cf9b0bc152caf7596 (patch)
tree72c75722a2ceb82ba6418187ad90353dc4121542 /doc/openmicroblogging.txt
parent41f013578024a1ce558bde4030a0171e2895ed09 (diff)
tags and XRDS
Starting the process of remote subscriptions. First, add the capacity to mint tags. May in the future want to allow some kind of UUID or URL for unique URIs. New config options for tag authority and date, and a function for minting tags. Store URIs in the DB. If the admin changes his/her tag config, this shouldn't change the URIs in the DB. Unless they really want to make that happen. Generate an XRDS document with the appropriate URLs for microblogging. Also, redefined some stuff in openmicroblogging.txt. And moved the file. darcs-hash:20080522183421-84dde-fe46f32e4050f2c4b6c850334103007ed7feabf7.gz
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/openmicroblogging.txt')
-rw-r--r--doc/openmicroblogging.txt306
1 files changed, 306 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/openmicroblogging.txt b/doc/openmicroblogging.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..77c52a10f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/openmicroblogging.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,306 @@
+===============================
+OpenMicroBlogging specification
+===============================
+
+Version 0.1
+
+Purpose
+=======
+
+To allow users of one microblogging service to publish notices to
+users of another service, given the other users' permission.
+
+Enabling technologies
+=====================
+
+Depends on OAuth 1.0, YADIS 1.0.
+
+We piggy-back additional information onto these protocols to pass
+microblogging information back and forth.
+
+Terminology
+===========
+
+microblogging service
+ undefined.
+user
+ undefined.
+listen
+ to allow a remote service to send notices to the user's local
+ service on a remote user's behalf.
+listener
+ the person listening.
+listenee
+ the user sending notices.
+remote service
+ the listenee's service.
+local service
+ the listener's service.
+profile URL
+ "home" URL for the listener, typically their profile page on a
+ microblogging site.
+nickname
+ An alphanumeric short name for a person, 1-64 characters.
+identifier URI
+ A globally unique and unchanging identifying URI for a user.
+ Need not be an URL. [*]_
+notice URI
+ A unique and unchanging identifier for a notice. Need not be an
+ URL. [*]_
+
+.. [*] May be the profile URL, if it's defined not to change or be
+ re-used. The profile URL of some services includes the nickname,
+ and some let the user change his/her nickname. This user's profile
+ URL may change from 'http://example.net/~john' to
+ 'http://example.net/~johnsmith' A tag URI, like
+ 'tag:example.net,2008:user:1' may be more appropriate here.
+.. [*] IWBNI the notice URI is used everywhere the notice is
+ published; for example, in any RSS feeds.
+
+Initiation
+==========
+
+The user submits their profile URL to the remote service somehow --
+for example, with an HTML form on the remote service's Web site.
+
+Discovery
+=========
+
+The remote service recovers a YADIS document from the profile URL, as
+described in YADIS 1.0.
+
+The remote service looks for the URIs of Service of these types:
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/requestToken
+ Request Token URL, as in OAuth 1.0
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/userAuthorization
+ User Authorization URL, as in OAuth 1.0
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/accessToken
+ Access Token URL, as in OAuth 1.0
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/postNotice
+ Post Notice URL, as defined below.
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/updateProfile
+ Update Profile URL, as defined below.
+
+http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1/identifier
+ identifier URI for the user with this profile URL.
+
+If any of the URIs is unavailable, the remote service MUST stop
+processing.
+
+Authorization
+=============
+
+The remote service must go through the OAuth 1.0 dance to get
+authorization to post notices and update profiles.
+
+In all OAuth, the consumer key should be blank (''), unless the remote
+server and local service have negotiated another key. Such negotiation
+is out-of-scope for this document, and we assume an "open" network of
+microblogging services. But if you want to have that kind of network,
+do it with this key.
+
+The remote service MUST do OAuth for every new listener, regardless of
+whether they've already received authorization for posting to the
+given postNotice URL. See `Posting a Notice`_ below.
+
+Request token
+-------------
+
+The remote service uses the defined requestToken URL to get a request
+token.
+
+In the request token HTTP request, the remote service MUST send the
+following additional parameter(s):
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'
+omb_listener
+ The identifier URI for the listener.
+
+In the results for the request token request, the local service MUST
+send the following additional parameters:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'
+
+User authorization
+------------------
+
+In requesting user authorization, the remote service must send the
+following parameters:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
+omb_listener
+ The identifier URI for the listener.
+omb_listenee
+ The identifier URI for the listenee.
+omb_listenee_profile
+ The profile URL of the listenee.
+omb_listenee_nickname
+ The nickname of the listenee.
+omb_listenee_license
+ The default license URL for the listenee's stream. Typically the
+ URL of a Creative Commons license, with the Attribution license
+ being heavily encouraged. CC0 quitclaim also pretty good. The
+ local service MAY reject listenees if their licenses are
+ incompatible with the service.
+
+The remote service should send as many of the following parameters as
+possible. This will help the user decide if they really want to allow
+the listening to happen, and allow the local service to store a copy
+of the listenee's profile.
+
+omb_listenee_fullname
+ The full name of the listenee. Up to 255 chars.
+omb_listenee_homepage
+ The home page of the listenee (may be distinct from the profile
+ URL).
+omb_listenee_bio
+ A brief biography of the listenee; less than 140 chars.
+omb_listenee_location
+ Physical location of the listenee; less that 255 chars. No fixed
+ structure, but "Locality, Region, Country" or "Locality, Country"
+ or "Locality, Region" recommended.
+omb_listenee_avatar
+ URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
+ the listenee.
+
+The local service, in a successful response, must return the
+following additional parameters:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
+omb_listener_nickname
+ A nickname for the listener.
+omb_listener_profile
+ The profile URL for the listener, possibly cleaned up or
+ canonicalized.
+
+It should return as many of the following as possible:
+
+omb_listener_fullname
+ The full name of the listener. Up to 255 chars.
+omb_listener_homepage
+ The home page of the listener (may be distinct from the profile
+ URL).
+omb_listener_bio
+ A brief biography of the listener; less than 140 chars.
+omb_listener_location
+ Physical location of the listener; less that 255 chars. No fixed
+ structure, but "Locality, Region, Country" or "Locality, Country"
+ or "Locality, Region" recommended.
+omb_listener_avatar
+ URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
+ the listener.
+
+This will allow the remote service to display information about the
+listener in the listenee's "listeners" or "subscribers" list.
+
+Posting a Notice
+================
+
+To post a notice to the local service, the remote service sends an HTTP
+POST message to the postNotice URL discovered above. The message must
+use OAuth authorization. The message must also include the following
+parameters:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
+omb_listenee
+ The identifier URI for the listenee.
+omb_notice
+ The notice URI.
+omb_notice_content
+ The content of the notice. No maximum, but 140 chars is recommended.
+
+The message may include the following parameters:
+
+omb_notice_url
+ The URL of the notice, if the notice is retrievable.
+omb_notice_license
+ The URL of the license for the notice, if different from the
+ listenee's default license.
+omb_seealso
+ URL of additional content for the notice; for example, an image,
+ video, or audio file.
+omb_seealso_disposition
+ One of 'link' or 'inline', to recommend how the extra data should
+ be shown. Default 'link'.
+omb_seealso_mediatype
+ Internet Media Type of the see-also data. Advisory, probably
+ shouldn't be trusted.
+omb_seealso_license
+ License for the attached data. May be distinct from the notice's
+ license (if they're passing along someone else's content).
+
+The local service should include the following parameters in its
+response:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
+
+The local service makes no guarantees about the delivery of the notice
+to anyone.
+
+The remote service SHOULD NOT send a message with the same notice URL
+to the same postNotice URL more than once. [2]_ If the request returns
+a 403 Unauthorized message, the remote service SHOULD NOT post
+messages to the same URL again with the same listenee, until another
+listener has gone through the OAuth dance. [3]_
+
+.. [2] A half-assed optimization. A local service may have a lot of
+ listeners listening to the same listenee. It would be pointless to
+ have the remote service post the same notice 100 times to the same
+ service. However, if the local service wants fine-grained control,
+ it can have a different postNotice URL for each listener.
+.. [3] If there's one postNotice URL per listener, the 403 message
+ means the listener has told the local service not to allow posting
+ any more ("unsubscribed"). If there's one postNotice URL per local
+ service, it means that the count of listeners has dropped to 0.
+
+Updating a profile
+==================
+
+If the listenee's profile information changes, the remote service MAY
+send an HTTP POST message to to the updateProfile URL to tell the
+local service about the change.
+
+The message must use OAuth authorization. The message must also
+include the following parameters:
+
+omb_version
+ 'http://openmicroblogging.org/protocol/0.1'.
+omb_listenee
+ The identifier URI for the listenee.
+
+The message may include any of the following parameters:
+
+omb_listenee_profile
+ The profile URL of the listenee.
+omb_listenee_nickname
+ The nickname of the listenee.
+omb_listenee_license
+ The default license URL for the listenee's stream. A change in the
+ default license only applies to future notices; notices previous
+ to the update SHOULD be treated as under the old license.
+omb_listener_fullname
+ The full name of the listener. Up to 255 chars.
+omb_listener_homepage
+ The home page of the listener.
+omb_listener_bio
+ A brief biography of the listener; less than 140 chars.
+omb_listener_location
+ Physical location of the listener; less that 255 chars.
+omb_listener_avatar
+ URL of a 96px by 96px image in PNG, GIF or JPEG format representing
+ the listener.
+
+Missing parameters should not be construed to mean that the profile
+field has been blanked. The remote service MUST set the parameter to
+an empty string to show that the field is blank.