Subject: Overview for a Beginner... ;-)

From: "NITSCH,FRANK (HP-Germany,ex1)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 13:55:29 +0200

Hi calendar friends,

first I'd like to introduce myself: my Name is Frank Nitsch
and I'm working as a software engineer for Hewlett Packard
in Germany.

In one of our current projects we need to provide scheduling
and calendaring capabilities. Our aim is to use a standardized
data format and standardized protocols where possible.

Fortunately it wasn't too hard to find the effort of IETF's
calsch working group in the web and so I started reading the
drafts and I had a look at some messages from this mailing list.

After some documents and various information I found about
calendaring and scheduling I'm now a bit confused. There are many
different terms and topics that refuse to build a clear picture
in my head...

So could you please help me forming a good understanding about the
connections of all this?

1. iCalendar vs. vCalendar
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
iCalendar is the data format proposed by the submitted drafts if
calsch, right? So why is a iCalendar object enclosed in vCalendar
tags? I thought vCalendar was an effort of some companies in the past;
aiming for kind of a standard in calendaring. Well, I guess iCalendar
bases on vCalendar in several areas. Is this the reason for this
"inheritance"? Is vCalendar "dead" resp. replaced by iCalendar?
And when I read in this mailing list that Outlook would at least
support to import vCalendar objects: does this really mean vCalendar
objects or rather iCalendar objects (which do have this vCalendar tag)?

2. iCal vs. SKICal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I first found the web page about SKICal I thought it would be a
proprietary implementation based on iCal. Then I've seen some discussions
on this list about SKICal as an extension to iCal.
What's SKICal's role in the game? As far as I understand SKICal is not a
part or the submitted drafts at all, right? Are there any plans to
incorporate SKICal into iCal? Could anybody give me an overview please?

3. iRIP vs. CAP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn't really get the difference between these both. I read on this
list that the interest in iRIP was lowered during the past month. Does
this mean that CAP will be the successor of iRIP? How do iRIP and CAP
differ and what is similar? What will happen to both the future?

4. CAP vs. WCAP (iPlanet)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I found iPlanet's calendaring product and I noticed that they used a
proprietary format/protocol named WCAP. Does anybody have knowledge
about the main differences, enhancements and about future plans?
Will it still be a proprietary thing or are there any efforts to derive
CAP enhancement from WCAP?

5. iCalendar/CAP and XML
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've seen that somebody has created a DTD for using iCalendar with XML.
I've also seen that people here argued that not changing the format to
XML would be better because it would possibly waeken iCal's chance to
become a standard.
We'd be extremely interested in an XML format for iCalendar. There are so
many advantages in terms of parsing (many XML parser tools available etc.),
communication (tools and busses which talk XML) etc.
Does anybody in the working group or in this list use XML for iCalendar
objects? Is there any new implementation of a DTD for iCalendar? Who would
be interested in discussing this (again...)?

6. Applications and Implementations of iCalendar so far...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is there a document maintaining a list of applications supporting
iCalendar/CAP and maybe embedded implementations, commercial and
free solutions/tools?
In our case we'd be happy to have the chance to take/buy a solution
we could embed in our implementation. Probably it wouldn't hurt if
only a limited set of features would work. Not each complex recurrence
rule is always required... (but I like the flexibility of 'em very much!
How to express otherwise things like "3rd to last work day of a quarter"?)
I found the "libical" project on the web but my first impression is that
it mainly deals with handling calendar objects (formatting, parsing etc.).
It's not at all a calendar store, right?

That's all for today. I appreciate any help and explanation.
Thank you for your effort!

	Frank
--
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Frank Nitsch                           mailto:[email-masked]
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