Subject: CAP 1.0 & Unknown components/subcomponents

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 13:54:25 -0500

Based on the thread on VTIMEZONEs that Andrea started and as an offshoot 
of the VQUERY thread I have a concern about the handling of unknown 
components in CAP.

Currently in the GET-CAPABILITY command the side sending the response 
specifically indicates the components/subcomponent that it specifically 
supports.  The relevant text is:

   COMPONENTS        1     A comma separated list of the names of
                           components that are supported. This
                           includes any components inside of
                           other components (VALARM for example).
                           It MUST include at least VCALSTORE, VCALENDAR,
                           VREPLY, and VAGENDA and at least one of VEVENT,
                           VTODO, VTIMEZONE, or VJOURNAL. The defalt
                           is "VCALSTORE,VCALENDAR,VREPLY,VAGENDA,
                           VEVENT,VALARM,VTIMEZONE,VJOURNAL,VTODO,
                           DAYLIGHT,STANDARD"

As such, there appears to be no onus or expectation that a CS can support 
just any component.  That is, if I create a VBILBO and want to save it to 
someone elses CS, if they do not respond with COMPONENTS:...,VBILBO... 
then I cannot save that component to their store.  As such its never going 
to be possible to save newer types into older stores.  This doesn't sound 
good to me... 

Why cant the CS just save the unknown component/subcomponent as a 'blob' 
that is likely ungrokable BUT is preservable??  After all, a CS MUST 
preserve the unknown properties in a VEVENT or other supported component, 
right!?  So why cant it do the same for unknown components or 
subcomponents?? 

Bruce
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Bruce Kahn                                INet: 
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