Guide to Internet Calendaring
RFC 3283

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• 02

Network Working Group                                         B. Mahoney
Request for Comments: 3283                                           MIT
Category: Informational                                        G. Babics
                                                                 Steltor
                                                                A. Taler
                                                               June 2002

                     Guide to Internet Calendaring

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes the various Internet calendaring and
   scheduling standards and works in progress, and the relationships
   between them.  Its intent is to provide a context for these
   documents, assist in their understanding, and potentially aid in the
   design of standards-based calendaring and scheduling systems.  The
   standards addressed are RFC 2445 (iCalendar), RFC 2446 (iTIP), and
   RFC 2447 (iMIP).  The work in progress addressed is "Calendar Access
   Protocol" (CAP).  This document also describes issues and problems
   that are not solved by these protocols, and that could be targets for
   future work.

Table of Contents

   1.    Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   1.1   Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
   1.2   Concepts and Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.    Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.1   Fundamental Needs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   2.2   Protocol Requirements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.    Solutions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   3.1   Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   3.2   Systems  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   3.2.1 Standalone Single-user System  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   3.2.2 Single-user Systems Communicating  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
   3.2.3 Single-user with Multiple CUAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   3.2.4 Single-user with Multiple Calendars  . . . . . . . . . . . .  9

Mahoney, et. al.             Informational                      [Page 1]
RFC 3283             Guide to Internet Calendaring             June 2002

   3.2.5 Users Communicating on a Multi-user System . . . . . . . . . 10
   3.2.6 Users Communicating through Different Multi-user Systems . . 10
   4.    Important Aspects  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   4.1   Timezones  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   4.2   Choice of Transport  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   4.3   Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   4.4   Amount of data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   4.5   Recurring Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.    Open Issues  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.1   Scheduling People, not Calendars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   5.2   Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   5.3   Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.    Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.1   Access Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.2   Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.3   Using E-mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.4   Other Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
         Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
         References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
         Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
         Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

1. Introduction

   Calendaring and scheduling protocols are intended to aid individuals
   in obtaining calendaring information and scheduling meetings across
   the Internet, to aid organizations in providing calendaring
   information on the Internet, and to provide for organizations looking
   for a calendaring and scheduling solution to deploy internally.

   It is the intent of this document to provide a context for these
   documents, assist in their understanding, and potentially help in the
   design of standards-based calendaring and scheduling systems.

   Problems not solved by these protocols, as well as security issues to
   be kept in mind, are discussed at the end of the document.

1.1 Terminology

   This memo uses much of the same terminology as iCalendar [RFC-2445],
   iTIP [RFC-2446], iMIP [RFC-2447], and [CAP].  The following
   definitions are provided as an introduction; the definitions in the