Re: xCal - time to submit?

[Speaking as an individual, not chair.]

Hi,

A couple of issues occured to me while reading the draft:

First, the problem this draft is trying to solve seems approximately the 
same that MMUSIC aimed at in its SDPng work, in which the idea was to 
move from the current SDP into an XML based format. Even the core 
difficulty seems to be the same, namely the huge installed base only 
supporting the legacy format makes transition a bit hairy.

Secondly, if we think of xCal as being a next generation iCal format, 
wouldn't it be more beneficial to design it from scratch instead of 
simply doing a 1:1 syntactic transform? After all, XML offers a lot of 
additional features that could be leveraged when doing a "better" 
calendar format.

A very simple example: rather than using "x-" prefix for private 
extensions, standard XML techniques could be used, i.e., putting the 
private extension element under a private (different) XML namespace.

This really boils down to "why?". What benefit is there to define this 
iCal to XML transformation? Because XML is cool is not enough, IMO, 
there needs to be some real benefits as well, especially when there is 
this huge existing installed base for iCal.

Having said all this, this might still be interesting work for even the 
IETF to take on, but I strongly feel this work would benefit from a much 
wider audience. Perhaps in the form of some comments and experiences 
from the MMUSIC WG, and probably a few thoughts from the XML "mafia" of 
the IETF as well.

Personally, I think this ought to be aiming at a BoF rather than an 
individual submission to the IESG.

Cheers,
Aki

ext Doug Royer wrote:
> 
> 
> xCal has been around for quite a while. I have included
> the last comments (and they were great feedback).
> 
> Is it time to move xCal from draft to RFC status?
> This is the 2nd round of xCal. The first was was delayed so
> this version re-started at -00 as the other draft-many
> had expired.
> 
> Please let me know if you have any more issues:
> 
> http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-royer-calsch-xcal-02.txt
> 
> If not, lets move this to RFC proposed standard.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> 
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