Re: SKiCal spec.

On Wed, 2002-11-06 at 14:36, Gary McGath wrote:

> >> Is there a mailing list for SkiCal discussions?
> >
> >Yes, http://www.skical.org/eng/maillist_eng.html
> >
> >It's very quiet as far as I can tell.
> 
> It seems to be; I found it by Google a couple of days ago and
> subscribed, and haven't seen any messages yet.

You are right. The SKiCal list is very silent, and has been for a long
time. However, this does not mean that development has ceased. SKiCal
discussions, for some reason, have been mostly on the IETF Calsch list,
and one-to-one. 

In fact, just a few hours ago I was in a meeting with two persons from
the IPTC (International Press and Telecomunications Council = AP,
Reuters...). They, too, are looking at SKiCal for their calendaring
interests. The need for SKiCal is obvious.

But I think that the specification is too complex to become widely
implemented. SkiCal has gone through 6 version updates at the IETF as an
Internet draft - and you will find when downloading the latest version 6
update, that we have digressed rather widely in our work with event
publishing concepts. As in any project of this nature complexity scales
badly for public acceptance and adoption. All SKiCal implementations
known to us are only partial implementations of the full specification.

Though we feel strongly about the concepts and contents of the current
draft, we are well aware of the need for a simplified SKiCal
specification drawing upon the experience of implementers. Since we have
refrained from seeking RFC status for the existing draft, this "lite"
version would be published as SKiCal 1.0 in text/directory (iCalendar)
format. Also, there should be appendices specifying how to express the
SKiCal semantics in XML ("xcal") and possibly as an RSS module.

We are hoping to recruit volunteers in this effort - so feel free to
join us. As Dan Brickley pointed out, the SKiCal list is probably the
best place for this work.
 
If all of us who are publishing public events information begin using
this limited SKiCal vocabulary, then probably the Apple iMac people and
the Mozilla calendar project would want to implement SkiCal. Others will
follow. It would be the first formalized modular extension of
iCalendar..

The not-yet-implemented properties in the current SkiCal specification
are needed too, not least do we see an increasing need for an "opening
time" schema in this world of online directories. But it is probably
better to begin small, and perhaps include these in a future SkiCal 2.0.


/Pär, co-author of the SKiCal specification

Received on Wednesday, 6 November 2002 14:42:20 UTC