XEP-0319: Last User Interaction in Presence

WARNING: Consideration of this document has been Deferred by the XMPP Standards Foundation. Implementation of the protocol described herein is not recommended.

1. Introduction
2. Use Cases
2.1. Presence with Last Interaction
2.2. Presence Indicating User Coming Back From Idle
3. Security Considerations
4. IANA Considerations
5. XMPP Registrar Considerations

Appendices
    A: Document Information
    B: Author Information
    C: Legal Notices
    D: Relation to XMPP
    E: Discussion Venue
    F: Requirements Conformance
    G: Notes
    H: Revision History

1. Introduction

This protocol describes a way to communicate time of last user interaction with other XMPP entities over presence stanzas. User interaction refers to a human end user interacting with her device by means of keyboard, mouse, touch and so on. Based on this information XMPP clients can display the time a contact went idle or how for how long a contact has been idle. Thereby end users can get a hunch on the expected responsiveness of their contacts.

The described protocol uses absolute timestamps indicated as value of the 'since'-attribute in the <idle>-tag. The time, represented in the 'since'-attribute, is to be formatted according to XMPP Date and Time Profiles (XEP-0082) [1].

2. Use Cases

2.1 Presence with Last Interaction

After a user has not interacted with her device for some amount of time the user wants to inform her contacts about this fact. For this the client sends a presence stanza with time of last interaction.

Example 1. Time of Last User Interaction in Auto-Away

<presence from='juliet@capulet.com/balcony'>
  <show>away</show>
  <idle xmlns='urn:xmpp:idle:1' since='1969-07-21T02:56:15Z'/>
</presence>

The amount of time after a client sends this enhanced presence is not set in stone but 5 minutes is suggested as a sensible default value.

2.2 Presence Indicating User Coming Back From Idle

The moment a user comes back and uses her device again the client can inform user's contacts by sending a normal presence stanza like shown in the following example.

Example 2. Presence Indicating Return to Device

<presence from='juliet@capulet.com/balcony' />

3. Security Considerations

Including a last user interaction notation in presence notifications can enable those who receive such notifications to determine exactly when a user has stopped interacting with his or her XMPP client or even their system, but this information is in essence already available if the user publishes timely presence updates. Therefore, this specification introduces no new vulnerabilities.

4. IANA Considerations

5. XMPP Registrar Considerations

Appendices

Appendix A: Document Information

Series: XEP
Number: 0319
Publisher: XMPP Standards Foundation
Status: Deferred
Type: Standards Track
Version: 0.2
Last Updated: 2013-08-27
Approving Body: XMPP Council
Dependencies: XMPP Core, XMPP IM, XEP-0082
Supersedes: XEP-0256
Superseded By: None
Short Name: idle
Source Control: HTML
This document in other formats: XML PDF

Appendix B: Author Information

Tobias Markmann

Email: tmarkmann@googlemail.com
JabberID: tm@ayena.de

Appendix C: Legal Notices

Copyright

Permissions

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this specification (the "Specification"), to make use of the Specification without restriction, including without limitation the rights to implement the Specification in a software program, deploy the Specification in a network service, and copy, modify, merge, publish, translate, distribute, sublicense, or sell copies of the Specification, and to permit persons to whom the Specification is furnished to do so, subject to the condition that the foregoing copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Specification. Unless separate permission is granted, modified works that are redistributed shall not contain misleading information regarding the authors, title, number, or publisher of the Specification, and shall not claim endorsement of the modified works by the authors, any organization or project to which the authors belong, or the XMPP Standards Foundation.

Disclaimer of Warranty

## NOTE WELL: This Specification is provided on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, express or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions of TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. ##

Limitation of Liability

In no event and under no legal theory, whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise, unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall the XMPP Standards Foundation or any author of this Specification be liable for damages, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising from, out of, or in connection with the Specification or the implementation, deployment, or other use of the Specification (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all other commercial damages or losses), even if the XMPP Standards Foundation or such author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

IPR Conformance

This XMPP Extension Protocol has been contributed in full conformance with the XSF's Intellectual Property Rights Policy (a copy of which can be found at <http://xmpp.org/about-xmpp/xsf/xsf-ipr-policy/> or obtained by writing to XMPP Standards Foundation, 1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600, Denver, CO 80202 USA).

Appendix D: Relation to XMPP

The Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is defined in the XMPP Core (RFC 6120) and XMPP IM (RFC 6121) specifications contributed by the XMPP Standards Foundation to the Internet Standards Process, which is managed by the Internet Engineering Task Force in accordance with RFC 2026. Any protocol defined in this document has been developed outside the Internet Standards Process and is to be understood as an extension to XMPP rather than as an evolution, development, or modification of XMPP itself.

Appendix E: Discussion Venue

The primary venue for discussion of XMPP Extension Protocols is the <standards@xmpp.org> discussion list.

Appendix F: Requirements Conformance

The following requirements keywords as used in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119: "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED"; "MUST NOT", "SHALL NOT"; "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED"; "SHOULD NOT", "NOT RECOMMENDED"; "MAY", "OPTIONAL".

Appendix G: Notes

1. XEP-0082: XMPP Date and Time Profiles <http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0082.html>.

2. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is the central coordinator for the assignment of unique parameter values for Internet protocols, such as port numbers and URI schemes. For further information, see <http://www.iana.org/>.

3. The XMPP Registrar maintains a list of reserved protocol namespaces as well as registries of parameters used in the context of XMPP extension protocols approved by the XMPP Standards Foundation. For further information, see <http://xmpp.org/registrar/>.

Abstract:	This specification defines a way to communicate time of last user interaction with her system using XMPP presence notifications.
Author:	Tobias Markmann
Copyright:	© 1999 - 2014 XMPP Standards Foundation. SEE LEGAL NOTICES.
Status:	Deferred
Type:	Standards Track
Version:	0.2
Last Updated:	2013-08-27