OTS
Open Task Standard - Distributed Task Management
Why OTS
Like iCalender it would be great to be able to send a task to a collegaue or friend. Of course there are propriatary systems, like Basecamp, Things or the Reminder app on your Mac. But what if you collegaue uses a different task management app then you? Enter OTS. Open Task Standard. It enables you to create a account everywhere and assigns a task to somebody working with a different app or platform.
Basic flows
Task assignment flow
- A task is created on a OTS enabled system
- It's assigned to an e-mail address
- The underlying OTS server checks if an OTS account is associated with that e-mail address
- The assigned user either receives the task via it's selected OTS server. Or he will receive a direct notification via email from the task-creating server.
Sign up flow
- Sign up proces is started on a task server/platform that supports OTS
- An e-mail address of choice is used
- Server checks if a OTS account is associated with the e-mail address
- If not, the registration process is finished
Update existing assigned task flow
- The task is updated
- The underlying OTS server sends the updated task object to the server who has created the task
- The 'owner' server propagates the updated task to all concerned
The Task Object
- Title
- Notes
- Due date
- Owner
- Assignees
- User identifier
- State
- Listeners
- Comments
- Index
- Comment
- Author
- Date
User discovery via Webfinger and Webfist
OTS aims to use Webfinger for discovering OTS accounts based on e-mail addresses. With Webfinger a server/domain can be queried if an user exists on that server and retrieve related information about this user.
So if the e-mail address is chris@task.af, the OTS server queries the task.af domain to see if a Webfinger profile exists for the user "chris"; in case task.af does not supply a webfinger service; Webfist is "queried" to see if this service has been delegated.
If e-mail address used contains a domain that is not Webfinger enabled, we use the Webfist network as a fall back. More info at Webfist.org.
Creating and updating Webfinger profile
When a user is being created a Webfinger profile will be created or updated. In case the "domain" on which a user is being created does not supply it's own Webfinger services; it is assumed delegation is taken care of via Webfist.
OTS Server discovery
OTS uses XRD for exposing the API endpoints.