Last Modified: 2004-07-01
The group will exist to create standards that make calendaring and scheduling software significantly more useful and to enable a new class of solutions to be built that are only viable if open standards exist. The Calendaring and Scheduling Working Group is chartered to focus on Internet standards for three basic problems facing group scheduling and calendaring users today. These include the following:
1. A standard content type for capturing calendar event and to-do information. The content type should be suitable as a MIME message entity that can be transferred over MIME based email systems or HTTP World Wide Web. The basic objects along with their representation using MIME will be specified in the document entitled "Core Object Specification".
2. A standard peer-to-peer protocol for common calendaring and group scheduling transactions. For example, these may include exchanging over the Internet, event-requests, reply to vent-requests, cancellation notices for event-requests, requesting free/busy time and replying to free/busy time requests between different calendaring products. The working group will undertake this work in two phases, with the first phase focusing on meeting requests and the second phase on free-busy time. To the extent that the peer-to-peer protocol has requirements related to security, the working group will attempt to apply existing Internet standards for authentication, and to assure privacy and integrity of sensitive calendaring information. The protocol for the interoperable transactions will be specified in a document called "Calendar Interoperability Protocol" in the milestone list.
3. A standard access protocol to allow for the management of calendars, events and to-dos over the Internet. This protocol will be specified in the document called "Calendar Access Protocol" in the milestone list.
This working group effort should be developed and stabilized with a 6-9 months since there has been considerable prior work done in this area. This prior body of work includes:
* Distributed Scheduling Protocol (CHRONOS) IETF Working Group
* ISO/IEC SC18 Distributed Office Application for Calendaring, Scheduling and Appointments
* MHS Alliance Calendaring and Scheduling Interoperability Protocol (CSIP)
* X.400 API Association (XAPIA) Calendaring and Scheduling API (CSA) and Calendaring and Scheduling Interoperabilty Specification (CSIS)
* X/Open Consortium Calendaring and Scheduling (XCS) Implementor's Specification
* Versit vCalendar format
The working group will focus on harmonizing, evolving and developing protocols and algorithms based on this work. The process is subject to extension if many new features are added, or more revision is needed.
| Done | Submit core object specification as Internet-Draft. | |
| Done | Submit first Internet-Draft of Calendar Interoperability Protocol. | |
| Done | Submit second draft of core object specification as Internet-Draft. | |
| Done | Submit revised Internet-Draft of Calendar Interoperability Protocol. | |
| Done | Submit core object specification to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard. | |
| Done | Submit Calendar Interoperability Protocol to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Draft. | |
| Done | Submit Internet-Draft (informational) on Guide to Implementors using Calendaring Protocols | |
| Feb 01 | Hold second CalConnect Interoperability Testing on iCalendar, iMIP and iTIP | |
| Mar 01 | Submit Internet-Draft on Calendar Access Protocol to IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard. | |
| Jul 01 | Request last call on Guide to Internet Calendaring | |
| Jul 01 | Submit Internet-Draft on Guide to Internet Calendaring for consideration as a Proposed Standard | |
| Jul 01 | Submit revisions for Internet-Draft for iCalendar, iMIP and iTIP | |
| Jul 01 | Submit revisions for Internet-Draft for Calendar Access Protocol | |
| Jan 02 | Evaluate readiness for interoperability testing of Calendar Access Protocol |
| RFC | Status | Title |
|---|---|---|
| RFC2445 | PS | Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar) |
| RFC2446 | PS | iCalendar Transport-Independent Interoperability Protocol (iTIP) Scheduling Events, BusyTime, To-dos and Journal Entries |
| RFC2447 | PS | iCalendar Message-based Interoperability Protocol (iMIP) |
| RFC2739 | PS | Calendar attributes for vCard and LDAP |
| RFC3283 | I | Guide to Internet Calendaring |
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IETF calsch WG meeting
IETF 60, San Diego, USA 2004-08-03, 1415 submitted by RL "Bob" Morgan also thanks to Nathaniel Borenstein for Jabber scribing The meeting was called to order at 1415 by co-chair RL "Bob" Morgan. The first agenda item was the proposed revised WG charter. Bob noted that the latest version of this does not include revising the iCal spec (RFC 2445), and asked for comments. Doug Royer and Nathaniel agreed on leaving iCal out of the calsch WG charter. Several people agreed that iCal revisions work should be done in a new WG chartered for that purpose. Bob noted consensus on this point. It was noted that work on revising 2445 et al could be undertaken as individual work at any time. Ted Hardie, AD, was asked whether revision of standards-track RFCs could be done as individual work. Ted said that it could, but his sense of this task is that a WG would probably be useful. Ted recommended setting up a new list to get started, and working on a new WG charter there. The next item was the CAP draft (draft-ietf-calsch-cap-13.txt) status and issues. Bob sent proposed resolutions of a number of CAP issues to the list. These include: BEEP text: may not be correct, need review from BEEP experts. Bob will ask for this. request-syntax ";" issue: remove the ";" to conform to 2445. EXPAND issue: closed without revision. use of "*" to mean all: adopted. restructuring of REQUEST-STATUS codes: closed without revision. There was some discussion of the REQUEST-STATUS codes. Doug offered to send a proposed revision of them to the list. Roy Fielding commented that the ABNF in the CAP spec is not valid. Checking with ABNF checkers at www.apps.ietf.org/abnf.html and at alvestrand.no was recommended. Doug said he would do this. Ted led a discussion of the status of the CAP spec. He asked whether the WG was intending to move it forward as a Proposed Standard. As a way to assess that, he asked how many people have looked closely enough at the spec to assess the implementability and usefulness of the protocol? There was only one strong response from the room, and one or two from the text conference. Ted said there does not seem to be enough interest to give the spec the attention it needs to be finished. A poll was taken to find out who in the room could spend significant time; only three said they could. There followed discussion of the whether CAP's advancement depends on iCal revisions, the problems of lack of standardization, whether CAP meets current needs, etc. Dave Thewlis, head of the Calconnect consortium, reported on the previous week's iCal interop. Full participants were IBM and Oracle, with others stopping by. All MUST/SHOULD in RFCs 2445-7 were tested. Results indicate that the specs need revision for better interop. Pat Egen will publish results on the ietf-calendar list when pulled together. Pat has also volunteered to work on revisions of 2445-7. There was consensus on starting a new list to discuss these revisions. Lisa Dusseault reported on the status of caldav. She said that now that she is working for OSAF she has official support for the work, and has been getting feedback. A new draft (-01) has been produced. The plan is to go beyond simple webdav and include calendar-specific logic. The session adjourned at 1525. |