RDFCalendar / xCalendar / other XML-based calendar representation

Speaking as a pragmatist (i.e. I am trying to publish some calendars for
work and work with some conference calendaring, I don't have any
theoretical background with either XML or RDF so I'm not sure of my footing
here):

The ultimate goals for standard calendar data formats, and why RFC2445 got
started, is for exchange of calendar information; but  what we want out of
XML-based calendar representation are calendar transformability and
interoperability with other tools. as well.

The standard iCalendar successfully addresses the exchange issue in many
ways, as Apple's use of it in iCal and Microsoft's use of it show. It
doesn't yet allow me to do some things that I want to do:

1. Use XML tools to transform calendar data into formats for other
software-  one of my use cases is Palm Desktop software. For some reason
unfathomable to me and not yet answered by Palm despite my requests, the
Palm Desktop software will only import and export the old vCalendar
specification.  If  calendar data were stored in XML I could conceivably
use XSL and XSLT tools to transform the data into vCalendar.

2. Use XML tools with xinclude to provide multiple transformations or
visualizations of the same data.

3.  I don't yet understand the parsetype="resource" issue - but what I can
see is that using standard namespaces for people and places is going to be
a good thing - _as_long_as one doesn't need too many specialized tools to
parse all the data.

Which tools will address all of those needs the best - RDF-based or
"straight XML"-based calendar tools?

Tim Hare
Senior Systems Programmer
Florida Department of Transportation
(850) 414-4209

Received on Tuesday, 23 December 2003 11:28:02 UTC