Re: [VCARDDAV] vCard revision - AN and RELATED;TYPE=partner

[Sly Gryphon <sgryphon at computer.org>]

I had a think of different contact applications and had a look at what 
fields they use around relationships and dates. (list below)

The summary:

- Anniversary is very common (as common as Birthday in fact).
- I couldn't find anything that stored date of death (except custom fields).

- Spouse/Partner is quite common, about as common as Manager and - 
Assistant, with the term "Spouse" slightly more frequent (also the Mac 
addressbook had them as separate fields). I would accept "spouse" as the 
field name (people will probably use it for spouse-like relations 
anyway), but think "partner" is slightly better.
- Chidren occurs occasionally, with parent slightly less often.
- Sibling is reasonably rare.
- Agent and emergency non-existent.

If you have more to add to the list below, feel free, but it is 
certainly looking like both "Partner" and "Anniversary" meet the 
criteria of being relevant for a majority (> 50%) of relevant applications.

I would actually propose removing DDAY (and DEATH) from the RFC, unless 
there is actually a need for them I can't think of (maybe genealogy is 
popular?)  

In most cases DDAY is not a very useful field for a contact: once dead, 
they aren't very useful as a contact, and someone isn't ever going to 
actually send you a new vCard (for themselves) with the value updated.

Agent is not very useful for personal contacts, but I can see a benefit 
for company contacts (as the name of a person). Emergency was argued for 
recently, but doesn't really have any existing implementations.

Sly Gryphon

List of applications I could think of: (please don't reply and resend 
this to the list)

* Microsoft Outlook 2007 :-
Manager, Assistant, Spouse/Partner; advanced fields include Children
Birthday, Anniversary

* Windows Address Book (Vista) / Outlook Express:-
Spouse/Partner, Children
Birthday, Anniversary

* Mozilla Thunderbird :-
None relevant

* LDAP (inetOrgPerson) :-
manager, secretary

* Evolution :-
Anniversary, Birthday
Manager, Assistant, Spouse

* Rolodap :-
Spouse, Children, Secretary

* Portable Contacts :-
Birthday, Anniversary
Children
Relationship values from XFN: child, parent, sibling, spouse, kin

* Windows Live Contacts API
Birthdate, Anniversary
SpouseName, Manager, Assistant

* Yahoo Contacts API
Birthday, Anniversary

* Open Contacts
Anniversary, Birthday,
Manager, Assistant, Child, Parent, Spouse
(can add arbitrary named fields)

* Mac Addressbook
Parent, Child, Partner, Spouse (separate fields)
Manager, Assistant, Friend

* iPhone
Birthday, Anniversary