Internet Engineering Task Force A. Tamas Internet-Draft B. Phister, Ed. Intended status: Informational J-E. Rodriguez Expires: July 25, 2019 OP3FT January 21, 2019 The 'leaptofrogans' URI Scheme draft-op3ft-leaptofrogans-uri-scheme-05 Abstract This document describes the 'leaptofrogans' Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme, which enables applications to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. Frogans is a medium for publishing content and services on the Internet, defined as a generic software layer on the Internet. Frogans Player is software enabling end users to browse Frogans sites. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. This document may not be modified, and derivative works of it may not be created, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents 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 "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on July 25, 2019. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 1] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Background Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1. About Frogans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2. About the OP3FT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. The Need for a New URI Scheme and its Purpose . . . . . . . . . 4 3. The Choice of the Scheme Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4. Scheme Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4.1. URI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4.2. IRI Usage and Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 5. Rights to Use the Trademark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 2] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 1. Background Information 1.1. About Frogans Frogans is a medium for publishing content and services on the Internet. From its inception in 1999, the medium was designed as a generic software layer running on top of the original Internet infrastructure, i.e. the TCP and IP protocols and the Domain Name System (DNS), alongside other existing layers such as E-mail or the World Wide Web. As a medium, Frogans is not meant for publishing Web sites, but Frogans sites, a kind of site founded upon a different format, enabling a different kind of communication between end users and publishers of content and services. Frogans is intended to be complementary to the World Wide Web, and not to replace it. This is just like instant messaging, which was not intended to and did not replace E-mail. Compared to the World Wide Web, Frogans suggests visual rather than text-based communication, focused content rather than long pages, and natural interaction rather than complex user interfaces. For further information on the reasons for introducing Frogans on the Internet, and for an in-depth discussion of the similarities and differences between Frogans sites and Web sites, see [FSDL] Section 1.4 "Frogans sites and Web sites". The technology making up the medium, i.e. the Frogans technology, includes multiple components such as: o An XML-based language, called Frogans Slide Description Language [FSDL], used to develop Frogans sites. o International identifiers, called Frogans addresses [IFAP], used to access Frogans sites. Each Frogans site has its own Frogans address. o Browsing software, called Frogans Player, enabling end users to browse Frogans sites. An end user opens a Frogans site by entering its Frogans address in Frogans Player. o A registry, called the Frogans Core Registry (FCR), that contains all Frogans addresses registered by Frogans site publishers. The registry operator, called the FCR Operator, ensures the resolution of Frogans addresses when end users enter them in Frogans Player. Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 3] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 1.2. About the OP3FT Created in 2012, the OP3FT [OP3FT] is a dedicated, non-profit organization whose purpose is to hold, promote, protect and ensure the progress of the Frogans technology, in the form of an open standard, available to all, free of charge. As part of its mission, the OP3FT develops and releases technical specifications, reference implementations (including Frogans Player), and various policies which define the rights and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved in the technology worldwide. 2. The Need for a New URI Scheme and its Purpose Generic software layers running on top of the original Internet infrastructure offer mechanisms enabling end users to easily go from one layer to another, in both directions. This is commonly achieved using URIs [RFC3986]. As regards Frogans as a medium, in the outgoing direction, FSDL enables Frogans site publishers to include in their Frogans sites way-out buttons enabling end users to launch their usual Web browser on a given Web page, or to launch their usual E-mail client with a given E-mail address. This is achieved by associating a URI with each of those way-out buttons (the scheme of the URI can be either 'http', 'https', or 'mailto'). Conversely, in the incoming direction, Web site publishers should have a means to include in their Web pages links enabling end users to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. Likewise, people writing E-mail messages should have a means to include in their messages links enabling recipients to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. More generally, any end-user application should be able to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. In order to achieve this, a new URI scheme, containing a Frogans address, is needed. Given that Frogans as a medium does not enable deep linking for Frogans sites, there is no need for additional information in the new URI scheme other than the Frogans address. The use of a MIME type as a means to include on a Web page a link enabling end users to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site was tested in 2006 with the registration of the 'vnd.frogans.ltf' media type with IANA [LTF]. But that use of a media type was revealed to be unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, for any Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 4] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 such link included on a Web page, the author of the Web page had to create and host a .ltf file on the Web server hosting that Web page, which was cumbersome. Furthermore, prior to creating such links, the author had to ask the server administrator to associate the .ltf files with the 'vnd.frogans.ltf' media type on the server. Alternatively, the author could create a link via a redirection service which would generate a .ltf file on the fly while associating it with the 'vnd.frogans.ltf' media type. But that alternative raised privacy concerns, and potentially added latency for end users. Finally, on the Web browser side, it appeared that using a media type from a Web page to launch another application did not always work, especially on mobile devices. 3. The Choice of the Scheme Name The name chosen for the new URI scheme is 'leaptofrogans'. This scheme name was chosen in compliance with [RFC7595] Section 3.8 "Scheme Name Considerations". As regards the length of the scheme name, shorter names were discussed but were not chosen: o 'ltf': this name, an acronym for "leap to Frogans", was considered insufficiently descriptive, especially for typical end users who have little technical knowledge. o 'leapto': this name was considered overly general, and is not specifically associated with Frogans. o 'frogans': this name was rejected because it could create confusion between URIs based on this scheme and those Frogans addresses that start with "frogans". 4. Scheme Syntax Frogans addresses [IFAP] are international identifiers made up of Unicode characters. Thus a method for encoding non US-ASCII characters is necessary when the new scheme is used as a URI. The new scheme can also be useful as an IRI [RFC3987] in contexts where IRIs are allowed. 4.1. URI Scheme The syntax for the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme is: Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 5] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 leaptofrogans-uri = "leaptofrogans:" pct-encoded-frogans-address where pct-encoded-frogans-address is a Frogans address compliant with [IFAP] whose Unicode characters are each encoded as follows: o If the character is a US-ASCII character, do not replace it and skip to the next character. Note that according to [IFAP], this character cannot be the U+0025 PERCENT SIGN character. o Otherwise, apply steps 1 through 3 below: 1. Convert the character to a sequence of one or more octets using UTF-8 [UTF-8] 2. Convert each octet to %HH, where HH is the hexadecimal notation of the octet value. Note that this is identical to the percent-encoding mechanism in section 2.1 of [RFC3986]. 3. Replace the original character with the resulting character sequence (i.e., a sequence of %HH triplets). Examples of 'leaptofrogans' URIs: - if the Frogans address is the string of US-ASCII characters "Network-Name*Site-Name": leaptofrogans:Network-Name*Site-Name - if the Frogans address is the string of Unicode characters U+7F51, U+7EDC, U+540D, U+002A, U+7AD9, U+540D (which is a Chinese translation of the Frogans address in the previous example): leaptofrogans:%E7%BD%91%E7%BB%9C%E5%90%8D*%E7%AB%99%E5%90%8D 4.2. IRI Usage and Encoding The syntax for IRIs corresponding to the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme is: leaptofrogans-iri = "leaptofrogans:" frogans-address where frogans-address is a Frogans address compliant with [IFAP] and encoded in UTF-8 [UTF-8]. In contexts where both URIs and IRIs are allowed, end-user applications can use either a URI or an IRI based on the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme when launching Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. This is because Frogans Player must interpret both Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 6] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 URIs and IRIs based on the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme. If the U+0025 PERCENT SIGN character is found in the string, then the string will be interpreted by Frogans Player as a URI, otherwise it will be interpreted as an IRI. 5. Rights to Use the Trademark In order to enable all users worldwide to use the Frogans technology in a clearly defined, secure and perpetual environment, the OP3FT Bylaws [BYLAWS] provide for the implementation of an intellectual property policy. In this context, the OP3FT is the holder of the "Frogans" trademark which is registered in France, the United States, and other countries around the world. However, this does not cause any problems with rights to use the scheme name in IETF specifications and Internet protocols because, in compliance with [RFC5378] Section 3.4. "Rights to Use Trademarks", the OP3FT hereby grants to the IETF Trust a perpetual license to use the "Frogans" trademark as part of the scheme name. 6. IANA Considerations [RFC Editor: Please replace 'xxxx' with assigned RFC number before publication] In accordance with the guidelines and registration procedures for new URI schemes [RFC7595], this section provides the information needed to register the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme. Scheme name: 'leaptofrogans' Status: permanent URI Scheme Syntax: See Section 4 of RFC xxxx. URI Scheme semantics: See Section 2 of RFC xxxx. Encoding Considerations: See Section 4 of RFC xxxx. Applications/protocols that use this scheme name: Frogans Player as well as any end-user application (such as a Web browser or an E-mail client) wishing to launch Frogans Player on a given Frogans site. Interoperability Considerations: There are no known interoperability Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 7] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 concerns related to use of the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme. Security Considerations: See Section 7 of RFC xxxx. Contact: Alexis Tamas mailto:alexis.tamas@op3ft.org Change controller: OP3FT mailto:contact-standards@op3ft.org References: RFC xxxx. 7. Security Considerations The author of a Web page can create a link where the true nature of the URI is hidden in the link text which is visible to end users. The same applies for an E-mail message as well as for other end-user applications. As concerns URIs based on the 'leaptofrogans' URI scheme, this risk of confusion is mitigated because Frogans Player must always display the real Frogans address contained in the URI, and require confirmation by the end user before opening the corresponding Frogans site. Also, an end-user application may provide a URI containing a Frogans address that is not valid. This does not represent a risk because, before asking for confirmation by the end user, Frogans Player must always verify that the Frogans address contained in the URI is compliant with [IFAP], and raise an error if the Frogans address is not compliant. 8. References 8.1. Normative References [IFAP] OP3FT, "International Frogans Address Pattern", Version 1.1, ISBN 978-2-37313-000-3, November 2014, . [RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005, . [RFC3987] Duerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, DOI 10.17487/RFC3987, January 2005, . Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 8] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 [RFC5378] Bradner, S., Ed. and J. Contreras, Ed., "Rights Contributors Provide to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378, DOI 10.17487/RFC5378, November 2008, . [RFC7595] Thaler, D., Ed., Hansen, T., and T. Hardie, "Guidelines and Registration Procedures for URI Schemes", BCP 35, RFC 7595, DOI 10.17487/RFC7595, June 2015, . [UTF-8] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November 2003, . 8.2. Informative References [BYLAWS] OP3FT, "Bylaws of the French Fonds de Dotation OP3FT, Organization for the Promotion, Protection and Progress of Frogans Technology", March 2012, . [FSDL] OP3FT, "Frogans Slide Description Language - 3.0", Preliminary Draft 7, September 2018, . [LTF] Tamas, A., "Media Type 'vnd.frogans.ltf'", March 2006, . [OP3FT] OP3FT, "Organization for the Promotion, Protection and Progress of Frogans Technology", 2012, . Authors' Addresses Alexis Tamas OP3FT 6, Square Mozart 75016 Paris, France Phone: +33 1 53 92 00 40 Email: alexis.tamas@op3ft.org Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 9] Internet-Draft leaptofrogans URI Scheme January 2019 Benjamin Phister (editor) OP3FT 6, Square Mozart 75016 Paris, France Phone: +33 1 53 92 00 40 Email: benjamin.phister@op3ft.org Jean-Emmanuel Rodriguez OP3FT 6, Square Mozart 75016 Paris, France Phone: +33 1 53 92 00 40 Email: jean-emmanuel.rodriguez@contrib.op3ft.org Tamas, et al. Expires July 25, 2019 [Page 10]