Puneet Varma (Editor)

Open Collaboration Services

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Open Collaboration Services

The Open Collaboration Services (OCS) is an open and vendor-independent modern REST-based API for integration of web communities and web-based services into desktop and mobile applications. It allows the exchange of relevant data from a social network between the site and clients such as other websites and applications or widgets running locally on the user's machine or mobile device. The protocol was designed so that all applications can access multiple services providing OCS APIs.

The API was designed by openDesktop.org as part of the Social Desktop especially as a cross-desktop backend provider. The API was standardised by freedesktop.org so that third-party providers are able to implement OCS API.

Non-KDE environments using the API include the Maemo Downloads application store and Apps for MeeGo.

Modules

OCS consists of multiple modules, of which both servers and clients are free to choose which to implement. In the 1.6 version of the OCS specification the modules are:

  • Person - user data
  • Friend - social graph
  • Message - in-site messaging between users
  • Activity - activity streaming
  • Content - downloadable content
  • Fan - content favoriting
  • Knowledgebase - access to FAQ items
  • Event - calendaring
  • Comments - content commenting
  • Private data - private key-value store
  • Forum - discussion topic structure
  • Buildservice - application software building
  • References

    Open Collaboration Services Wikipedia