Does LinkedIn support OAuth 2.0 “Resource Owner Password Credentials” grant type?

Question

I'm writing an application to automate some operations (e.g. search) with my LinkedIn account. To use LinkedIn API I need to authorize using its OAuth 2.0 implementation.

I would like to make this process as much automated as possible and Resource Owner Password Credentials grant type seems perfect to me (as I only need to store my login/password in the app with no further UI interaction). However, as it is stated in an answer to similar question LinkedIn may not support this type of grant.

So, the questions are:

1. Does LinkedIn API support OAuth 2.0 "Resource Owner Password Credentials" grant type?
2. If it does, what steps I need to perform to use it?
3. If it does not, what is the most automated (minimum user interaction with UI) way to authenticate to LinkedIn API?

Answer 1

1 and 2: It does not: (grant_type Required, value is always authorization_code).

3: Easiest (and only) way is using OAuth 2 flow, in which the user will get two buttons in Linked In's UI for authorizing or not access to your app.

Source: http://developer.linkedin.com/documents/authentication.

Answer 2

As per LinkedIn documentation, their support of OAuth 2.0 is incomplete and limited to only the "Authorization Code" grant type.

I suppose it is intentional (although not explicitly stated as such) to limit the ability of stand-alone applications (mobile or desktop) to interact with their platform. It forces a developer to "have a website", narrowing down the amount of potential contenders. Yes, it does suck.