[calsify] Re: vCard-related AddressBook work in W3C-related groups

[Michiel de Jong <[e-mail]>]

Hi Hans-Joerg,

Nice to see you here, and thanks for your detailed answer!


On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 at 17:08, <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hi Michiel,
>
> >
> > The W3C has an ontology which is based on your vCard standard.
> >
> > For AddressBook functionality, the Solid project, which is not a W3C
> > Working Group, but uses W3C Community Group infrastructure, is using a
> > number of RDF terms that are related to vCard, but not part of vCard.
> >
> > Our intention is not necessarily to add AddressBook functionality to
> > the vCard standard as such.
>
> Just for the list, your PR further down defines "AdressBook" as:
>     "Represents a collection of vCard people and/or vCard groups"
>
>
>
> > We merely want to document our RDF classes
> > and properties at their official namespace URL, without creating
> > ambiguity between W3C and IETF.
> >
> > I now documented these terms briefly here, as a proposed extension of
> > the W3C vCard Ontology: https://github.com/solid/contacts/pull/12.
> >
> > My question is as follows: suppose the W3C can be convinced to add
> > these terms to the `https://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#`
> <https://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#> namespace, with
> > an express comment on each term, something like:
> >>  This class/property is used by the Solid Project client-client spec
> > for Contacts, but not part of vCard as defined by the IETF
> > Would you feel that would be OK?
>
> Rephrasing your question, I understand:
>
> * You (resp. W3C) created a vCard Ontology ([1]?) with a namespace
> prefix "http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#" (Via comments in [1] I found
> "vCard Ontology - for describing People and Organizations" [3])
> * You now created an additional concept called "AdressBook", which has
> no direct correspondence to vCard as
> https://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#AddressBook (plus some other concepts)
> * You want to know if that's OK, resp. if the RDFS:comment in the PR [2]
> is a good idea
>
>
Yes! Well rephrased.


>
> In my opinion (list, correct me if I am wrong) you are probably free to
> create any NS prefix like "http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#" and add
> arbitrary concepts to it. There's nothing IETF could probably do about
> this.
>

Thanks!


> The question is rather what Solid users could expect here,


Right, good point.


> as per
> comment in [1]:
>
>    "vCard Ontology for describing People and Organizations allows direct
> conversion
>     to and from the widley (sic!) deployed VCARD format, so users should
> be able import
>     and export and ideally sync their contacts between their Solid pod
> and other systems"
>
> Without reviewing [3], I assume your new "AddressBook" concept would not
> block users from converting Solid vCard Ontology data to actual VCARD.
>

Correct. It just defines how VCARDs are grouped into RDF documents.


>
> You might however probably want to refer both [3] and your notes on
> "AdressBook" rather in
> https://github.com/solid/contacts/blob/main/README.md or in a novel
> mapping document to avoid confusion among Solid users.
>
>
Thanks! Will do.


> Side note: as per "users should be able import and export and ideally
> sync their contacts between their Solid pod and other systems", there's
> a recent draft with the particular goal of data portability among
> different vendors systems [4] which aims to use JSContact [5] (which
> relates to vCard as described in [6]).
>
> Since, as I understand, the Solid project has a considerable emphasis on
> specific facets of data portability, it might worthwhile to get
> feedback/input from a Solid perspective on [4] and perhaps consider
> aligning both efforts?
>

Good point! The way Solid is architected, the user's pod contains linked
RDF documents, and different Solid apps that are hosted either on the pod
or elsewhere, and that can run either in the browser, on a server, or on a
device the user owns, would do the sync and conversion. We should
definitely look into building a JSContact-compatible Solid app. :)



> Best,
> Hans-Joerg
>
> [1]
> https://github.com/solid/contacts/blob/main/shapes/contacts-shapes.ttl
> [2] "rdfs:comment "This class is used by the Solid Project client-client
> spec for Contacts, but not part of vCard as defined by the IETF"@en ;"
> [3] https://www.w3.org/TR/vcard-rdf/
> [4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-happel-mailmaint-pdparchive/
> [5] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc9553/
> [6] https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9555.html
>
> >
> > Many thanks,
> > Michiel de Jong
> > Solid CG co-chair
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