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iCalendar - What would somebody use Free/Busy time for?

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 12:51 am
by Luke
I am finally getting back around to working on my icalendar parser and I have come across the FREEBUSY component in the spec. This component allows for calendar users to request and reply to requests for free/busy time. Has anybody ever used such a system? Does outlook do this?

The spec allows for entire files with nothing but free/busy time information. I guess I'm just not really understanding who has time to sit down and ALOT all of their "free/busy" time in advance. Seems strange.

Re: iCalendar - What would somebody use Free/Busy time for?

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 7:22 am
by Jenk
I'd have thought that "free" time would just not be allocated anything?

Re: iCalendar - What would somebody use Free/Busy time for?

Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:58 am
by Luke
I have thought about this some more, and I can think of a reason why this component might be useful. The iCalendar spec allows a user to "attend" an event, during which time they would be "busy". One could use the free/busy time component to add the times they expect to be at work, which would also be busy. I can see how, combined, this information could be somewhat useful.