W3C

Composite Capabilities/Preference Profiles: Terminology and Abbreviations

W3C Working Draft 21 July 2000

This version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-CCPP-ta-20000721/
Latest version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/CCPP-ta/
Editors:
Mikael Nilsson, mikael.nilsson@ks.ericsson.se, Ericsson

Abstract

This document contains terminology and abbreviations that are used in other CC/PP documents. For a detailed description of CC/PP, please see [CC/PP].

Status of this document

This document is a working draft made available by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for discussion only. This indicates no endorsement of its content. This is the first public working draft, and work in progress, representing the current consensus of the working group, and future updates and changes are likely.

The working group is part of the W3C Mobile Access activity. Continued status of the work is reported on the CC/PP Working Group Home Page (Member-only link).

It incorporates suggestions resulting from reviews and active participation by members of the IETF CONNEG working group and the WAP Forum UAprof drafting committee.

Please send comments and feedback to www-mobile@w3.org.

A list of current W3C Recommendations and other technical documents can be found at http://www.w3.org/TR/.

Table of Contents

1. Terminology
2. Abbreviations
3. References


1. Terminology

The key words "MUST," "MUST NOT," "SHOULD," "SHOULD NOT," "MAY," and "MAY NOT" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

The following terms are used in this document.

Anonymization
Hiding the identity of the user as a security precaution.
Assurance of origin
Information provided to the receiver of a message that allows it to be certain of the origin of the message. (This assurance may not be sufficient to convince any other party about the origin of the message.)
Assurance of receipt
Information provided to the sender of a message that allows it to be certain that the message was delivered to its intended recipient. This is not necessarily a proof of receipt.
Attributes
A CC/PP attribute refers to the data elements describing the profile and is denoted as an RDF property. Each CC/PP attribute is associated with a value or a list of values or resources.
Authentication
Some communication process that provides definite and tamper-proof information about the identity of a communicating party.
Authorization
Permission to view or modify a data resource, or to perform some other action. Authorization is usually granted to an identified entity, and thus depends on authentication of the party performing the action.
CC/PP Repository
A server that stores the user agent profile or profile segments persistently in a form that may be referenced by and incorporated into a profile. A CC/PP repository is typically a Web server that provides CC/PP profiles or profile segments in response to HTTP requests.
Cacheable
A data resource is said to be "cacheable" if the data resource contains a property that allows a sever to determine whether the cached resource matches a request for a similar resource.
Cache
A storage area used by a server or proxy to store data resources that have been retrieved or created in response to a request. When a new request for a "cached" data resource is received, the server or proxy can respond with the cached version instead of retrieving or creating a new copy.
Capability
An attribute of a sender or receiver (often the receiver) which indicates an ability to generate or process a particular type of message content. See also "Attributes".
Channel security
A form of security (authentication and/or confidentiality) that operates on a given communication channel, regardless of the information that is transferred over that channel. The security thus provided is between the end-points of the channel only.
Client
An entity that is the original compositor of a CC/PP profile.
Confidentiality
Protecting the content of a message from unauthorized disclosure.
Content Generation
For the purpose of this specification, "content generation" refers to generating content appropriate to the user agent profile of the request by using the user agent profile as input to a dynamic content generation engine. The XSL and style sheets of the document are used to tailor the document to the user agent profile of the request.
Content Negotiation
The mechanism for selecting the appropriate representation when servicing a request. The representation of entities in any response can be negotiated (including error responses).
Content Selection
For the purpose of this specification, "content selection" refers to selecting an appropriate document from a list of possible choices or variants by matching the document profile with the user agent profile of the request.
Content Provider
A server that originates content in response to a request.
Data Resource
A data object that can be transferred across a network. Data resources may be available in multiple representations (e.g. multiple languages, data formats, size, resolutions) or vary in other ways.
Document
For the purpose of this specification, "document" refers to content supplied in response to a request. Using this definition, a "document" may be a collection of smaller "documents", which in turn is a part of a greater "document".
Document Profile
Document profiles offer a means to characterize the features appropriate to given categories of user agents. For instance, one profile might include support for style sheets, vector graphics and scripting, while another might be restricted to the tags in HTML 3.2. Document profiles can be used by servers to select between document variants developed for different user agent categories. They can be used to determine what transformations to apply when such variants are not available. Content developers can use document profiles to ensure that their web sites will be rendered as intended.
Dynamic Content
Content that is generated in response to a request. This may be used for content that depends on changing environmental factors such as time (e.g., stock quotes) or place (e.g., nearby gas stations)
Feature
Functional property of a device or entity.
Gateway
Software that is capable of bridging disparate network protocols. For the purposes of this specification, "gateway" refers to protocol bridging functionality, which may exist in a stand-alone gateway or may be co-located with a proxy or origin server.
Hint
A suggestion or preference for a particular option. While this option is strongly recommended, its use is not required.
Integrity
Procedures applied to ensure that information is not corrupted in transit. Different integrity procedures may protect against accidental or intentional corruption of data.
Machine Understandable
Data that is described with tags that associate a meaning to the data (i.e., an "author" tag would describe the author of the document), allowing data to be searched or combined and not just displayed.
Namespace
A qualifier added to an XML tag to ensure uniqueness among XML elements.
Negotiate Content
Message content that has been selected by content negotiation.
Negotiation Metadata
Information which is exchanged between the sender and the receiver of a message by content negotiation in order to determine the variant which should be transferred.
Non-repudiation
This term has been the subject of much dispute. Broadly speaking, it is a process that prevents a party to a communication from subsequently denying that the communication took place, or from denying the content of the communication. Sometimes this term is used in a purely technical sense (e.g. generation of data that is dependent on the communication and its content) and sometimes in a legal sense (i.e. evidence that could be sustained in a court of law).
Non-Repudiation of Origin
The ability of the receiver to verify the source of the information.
Non-Repudiation of Receipt
The ability of the sender to verify that the intended recipient received the information.
Non-variant Content
When the form/format of the content being sent does not depend on receiver's capabilities and/or preferences
Object security
A form of security (authentication and/or confidentiality) that operates on an item of data (a object), regardless of the communication channel over which it is passed. Object security can apply to data that is passed over several different data channels in succession, but cannot be used to protect message addressing and other transfer-related information.
Origin Server
Software that can respond to requests by delivering appropriate content or error messages. The origin server may receive requests via either WSP or HTTP. Application programs executing on the origin server deliver content that is tailored in accordance with the CC/PP that can be found within the provided profile. For the purpose of this specification, "origin server" refers to content generation capabilities, which may physically exist in a stand-alone Web server or may be co-located with a proxy or gateway.
Preference
An attribute of a sender or receiver (often the receiver) which indicates a preference to generate or process one particular type of message content over another, even if both are possible.
Privacy
Preventing the unintended or unauthorized disclosure of information about a person. Such information may be contained within a message, but may also be inferred from patterns of communication; e.g. when communications happen, the types of resource accessed, the parties withwhom communication occurs, etc.
Profile
An instance of the schema that describe capabilities for a specific device and network. A profile need not have all the attributes identified in the vocabulary/schema.
Proof of receipt, or Proof of delivery
Information provided to the sender of a message that allows them to prove subsequently to a third party that the message was delivered to its intended recipient. (This proof may not necessarily be legally sustainable.)
Proxy
Software that receives HTTP requests and forwards that request toward the origin server (possibly by way of an upstream proxy) using HTTP. The proxy receives the response from the origin server and forwards it to the requesting client. In providing its forwarding functions, the proxy may modify either the request or response or provide other value-added functions. For the purposes of this specification, "proxy" refers to request/response forwarding functionality, which may exist in a stand-alone HTTP proxy or may be co-located with a gateway or origin server.
RDF Resource
An object or element being described by RDF expressions is a resource. An RDF resource is identified by a URI.
Receiver
A system component (device or program) which receives a message.
Receiver-initiated Transmission
A message transmission which is requested by the eventual receiver of the message. Sometimes described as "pull" messaging. E.g. an HTTP GET operation.
Schema
An RDF schema denotes resources which constitute the particular unchanging versions of an RDF vocabulary at any point in time. It is used to provide semantic information (such as organization and relationship) about the interpretation of the statements in an RDF data model. It does not include the values associated with the attributes.
Security
Describes a set of procedures applied to data communications to ensure that information is transferred exactly as the sender and receiver intend, and in no other way. Security generally breaks down into integrity, authentication, confidentiality and Privacy.
Sender
A system component (device or program) which transmits a message.
Sender-initiated transmission
A message transmission which is invoked by the sender of the message. Sometimes described as "push" messaging. E.g. sending an email.
User
An individual or group of individuals acting as a single entity. The user is further qualified as an entity who uses a device to request content and/or resource from a server.
User agent
A program, such as a browser, running on the device that acts on a user's behalf. Users may use different user agents at different times.
User Agent Profile
Capabilities and preference Information pertaining to the capabilities of the device, the operating and network environment, and users personal preferences for receiving content and/or resource.
Variant
One of several possible representations of a data resource.
Variant Content
When the form/format of the content being sent depends on receiver's capabilities and/or preferences
Vocabulary
A collection of attributes that adequately describe the CC/PP. A vocabulary is associated with a schema.

2. Abbreviations

CC/PP Composite Capabilities/Preferences Profile
CC/PPex CC/PP Exchange Protocol
CONNEG Content Negotiation Working Group in the IETF
ER Entity-Relationship
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language
HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
HTTPex HTTP Extension Framework
IANA Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force
IOTP Internet Open Trading Protocol
LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
OTA Over The Air, i.e. in the radio network
P3P Project for Platform for Privacy Preferences
RDF Resource Description Framework
RFC Request For Comments
TBD To Be Determined
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
UAProf User Agent Profile
W3C World Wide Web Consortium
WAP Wireless Application Protocol
WBXML WAP Binary XML
WML Wireless Markup Language
WSP Wireless Session Protocol
XHTML Extensible Hyper-Text Markup Language
XSL Extensible Style Language
XML Extensible Markup Language

3 References

[CC/PP] Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP): A user side framework for content negotiation

[RDF] Resource Description Framework, (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification

[RFC2119] RFC 2119 : Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels

[XML] Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0


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