RSS and the 3rd Binding

I assume that everyone on this TC is aware of Elm City…

http://blog.jonudell.net/elmcity-project-faq/

Elm City uses a model of shared calendars in which one subscribes to a calendar as one does to an RSS feed, as opposed to the more prevalent model in which one subscribes to a mailing list which mails out messages containing ICalendar objects. A significant difference is that if an event is modified or cancelled, another mailing is required. If I forward the message to a 3^rd party, there is no way that the 3^rd party will maintain up-to-date information. Elm City addresses this and many other scaling issues.

Jon and I were interviewed for a podcast (www.itconversations.org) last month on ostensibly on scheduling the internet of things, but finally titled Open Source Smart Energy when published. Speaking with Jon, I began to think about the issues of WS-Calendar and Elm City and RSS Feeds.

Soon afterward, I was looking at the class schedule for the local Yoga school. This is just the sort of schedule that under the Elm City model, I would have a subscription to. There is some predictability of schedule, but a kaleidoscope of instructors, particularly around the holiday period. There are a few instructors that will determine that I will attend that class. There is another set of instructors that will determine that I will not attend that class. There are others that whose classes I rank each day by instructor / schedule to pick which one.

I actually do not want all of their classes on my schedule. I am interested in the weekday classes between 5:30 PM and 9:00 PM, with the addition of the Friday afternoon classes from 4:00 on. Using the vAvailability components, it would be straight-forward to place a <availability> in the request for the subscription, and only get those events bounded into my personal meta-calendar…

This seems like it would be generally applicable.

So the questions for this tc are:

1) What are the interactions of “RSS for Calendars”

2) How do we apply some of the others standards (such a Vavailability) to build more intelligent profiles for the RSS of Calendars

3) Is this a reasonable additional binding for WS-Calendar

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
– George Bernard Shaw.

Toby Considine
TC9, Inc

TC Chair: oBIX & WS-Calendar

TC Editor: EMIX, EnergyInterop

U.S. National Inst. of Standards and Tech. Smart Grid Architecture Committee

Email: Toby.Considine@gmail.com
Phone: (919)619-2104

http://www.tcnine.com/
blog: www.NewDaedalus.com

ws-calendar message