As a standards geek, I worked for years on improving Internet calendaring standards, and it was the biggest failure in my standards career. Why? Two reasons, one technical, one technopolitical:
1. The ical standards permit infinitely recurring meetings, which have to be represented as rules rather than sets. Then, when exceptions to the rules occur, they have to be represented as exceptions, and it becomes way too complicated. If all repeating meetings were represented as finite sets (to be renewed, even automatically, every year or two) then the standards would be much simpler and there would be fewer problems.
2. Microsoft has shown absolutely zero interest in playing nice and making its calendars compatible with everyone else's. When the dominant player in office calendaring won't play nicely, interoperation is simply never going to happen.
This, in my opinion, is why governments should mandate and enforce open standards. It is in the interest of the consumer, overwhelmingly, but open standards are pretty much never in the interest of a company that holds a dominant/monopolist position.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
