[Tzdist] Create and distribution process of events with TZ data.

[Doug Royer <[e-mail]>]

There seem to be two separate issues in the latest discussions.

    (1) Distribution of TZ data.

    (2) Create/Update event change notifications that may include TZ 
changes.

As to Distribution (#1) of updated TZ data:

     That is one of the points to this mailing list and I am still 
getting up to date.
     I still do not see the need for version information - still reading 
old posts.

As to the Create/Update (#2) it already has a mechanism - iTIP and my 
comments on that are:

I would think the achievable process would be to first have at event 
creation time the
organizers user agent make an attempt to get the latest up to date 
version of time zone and
distribute all or part of that TZ data with the event (or group of events).

Its not going to be possible for many small devices to track TZ versions 
or compute differences
and update the user to a schedule change resulting from TZ data changes. 
Explaining how
to do that, doing that correctly, is going to be a pain. If too many 
fail at this, inaccurately computed
TZ change computations is just as useless as not sharing any TZ data.

I don't think anyone wants every CUA when powered up to contact a TZ 
authority and look for updates,
then do all those recalculations on every event to determine if there 
are any changes the user needs
to see. This would be DNS level connections with larger data packets.

Which is why I think it is the event creators responsibility to get the 
up to date information
and if it happens to not be up to date at least everyone will be late or 
early :-)

When the organizer/CUA notices a significant TZ change has occurred, 
then then it iTIP handles
the redistribution of scheduled events. No need for a new mechanism. 
When the
organizer, or organizers CUA notices a TZ change, a person or automated 
process can
re-PUBLISH or  schedule the new updates with the new TZ data just as 
they do now.
Any iTIP compliant CUA can already handle this.

-- 

Doug Royer - (http://K7DMR.us / http://DougRoyer.US)
[e-mail]
714-989-6135