[Ietf-caldav] Fwd: [Dev] RSS for calendar exchange?!

[Bill Kearney]

> The problem with RSS is that there are too many applications for it ;-)
> Eg I can think of at least 20 different things which OGo could export
> as RSS feeds and a lot of them are per-object (eg a separate task RSS
> for each project). And handling so many different feeds with semantic
> value again requires a pretty powerful RSS reader (more than the usual
> display some news thing).

Bear in mind that an arms race, figuratively speaking, in RSS readers would
depend on there being more robust content available.  Publishing calendar data
in 'native forms' as opposed to 'pretty printed' into HTML descriptions could go
a long way toward jumpstarting the competition in this field.  The readers
already have a certain degree of 'lead time' in the race as they've already
tackled a good bit of the UI side of the application.

So it's entirely reasonable to use something like an RSS-1.0 formatted feed for
this purpose.  You can publish the parts that existing RSS readers can use while
also piggy-backing along the live data.  The readers that don't know how to use
it won't be 'harmed'.  Then it's just a matter of picking among the many readers
to decide who to encourage developing support for your additions.

-Bill Kearney
Syndic8.com