Why do we need RDF calendaring?

Hi all,

This list has been very quiet recently, partly because lots of people
have been at W10. I'd like to get some ideas flowing on this list now
that people are getting back. I want to start with a biggie: Why do we
need RDF calendaring and scheduling?

I've been reading a lot of rfcs about iCalendar and there are a lot of
products already using the IETF's iCalendar[1] format and protocols,
such as Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator Professional and
Palm. Basically, the interchange format of iCalendar is just fine for
most calendaring and scheduling purposes. The IETF have spent a great
deal of time and effort getting it right. It wouldn't be very useful
simply to convert iCalendar into XML. Is there any point in converting 
it to RDF?

Well (you might argue) RDF can give you

* extensibility (but iCalendar is extensible)
* unique identifiers (but iCalendar uses email addresses and urls to
identify people and locations)
* tools for parsing (RDF tools are not mature; XML tools are more
mature; iCalendar tools are very mature)

I've been thinking about this and chatting with Dan Brickley and Jan
Grant among others. I'd agree with Dan that the answer lies in the
connections we can make with other kinds of data if we are able to
convert iCalendar to RDF. 

One example might be: I'm learning about SMIL; I find the W3C
recommendation for SMIL; from this document and other RDF documents on
the W3C site and elsewhere I can find meetings at which the document was
produced and altered. I can then find out who attended the meetings and
more about their connections and affiliations from other RDF databases
such as RDFWeb. I can also find other documents that were inputs to the
meetings and also other outputs from the meetings such as minutes and
photos. 

Much of this data is already available on the web. Putting all these
types of information, including meetings and other events in an RDF
calendar format connects up this information to make my life easier when
I start doing research on SMIL. Putting calendar information in RDF is
only a part of the project of putting all these different kinds of
information in RDF. 

any thoughts?

Libby

[1] IETF Calendaring and Scheduling (calsch) WG
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/calsch-charter.html

(see links at the bottom for calendar-related RFCs)

Received on Monday, 7 May 2001 08:51:01 UTC