Permit the Creation of iCalendar files with ATTENDEE and without ORGANIZER
The iCalendar format foresees ORGANIZER and ATTENDEE properties. The “Event Scheduling Concepts” make use of both of them, but for presentation purposes ATTENDEEs can be presented in iCalendar without organizer. The lack of ORGANIZER entitles one to insert an event with ATTENDEES in its calendar, and edit the event, without sending updates to the attendees.
Distributing an iCalendar file can be done:
- by “Scheduling concepts” - insert Organizer and Attendees and the distribution to the ATTENDEEs happens automatically,
- by iTIP METHOD:PUBLISH, utilized in Evolution with the “Forward as iCalendar…” operation
I want that anybody can create iCalendar files on its computer, with whatever properties the writer wants to use, and then the iCalendar file is sent (by email) for publishing, together with other published events, created by other persons. The role of the distributor (publisher, the one receiving the iCalendar files over emails) is to insert the received event data to a public calendar. After the data is inserted in the calendar, the distributor shall be entitled to edit/correct the event. The distributor is not the organizer of the events, and the subscribers of the public calendar (or the readers of its HTML-rendered form) shall see as structured data (in iCalender terms: CAL-ADDRESS property type, incl. property parameters like COMMON-NAME) who organizes the event.
Since the ORGANIZER is organizer only in terms of iMIP-Event-Scheduling, I want to use the ATTENDEEs as organizers. Having event without ORGANIZER has the advantage, that it can be edited by the calendar-owner (publisher) and allows to have more than one contact addresses of the organizer.