Re: RFC 2446 conflict: Delegation and REPLY

[Bruce_Kahn@xxxxxxxx]

A while back I raised the case of a conflict in iTIP with regards to what goes into a delegation message in iTIP.  There was no coverage of is so Im raising it again.  Here is the original posting for thost that missed it the first time:

Ok, while taking a breather to reread the RFCs yet again Ive found a discrepancy in RFC 2446 with respect to delegation and ATTENDEE properties.  In particular 

4.2.5 Delegating an Event

  When delegating an event request to another "Calendar User", the
  "Delegator" must both update the "Organizer" with a "REPLY" and send
  a request to the "Delegate". [Snip, snip]      The "Delegator" MUST:

    .  Send a "REPLY" to the "Organizer" with the following updates:
    .  The "Delegator's" "ATTENDEE" property "partstat" parameter set
       to "delegated" and the "delegated-to" parameter is set to the
       address of the "Delegate"
    .  Add an additional "ATTENDEE" property for the "Delegate" with
       the "delegated-from" property parameter set to the "Delegator"

says that on my REPLY to the Organizer I can have 2 (or possibly more if I do delegation to > 1 CU!) ATTENDEE properties in it.  A supporting example can be found in 4.2.6 Delegate Accepts the Meeting.  However these are in direct conflict with: 

3.2.2.3 Delegating an Event to another CU
... 
   In response to the request, the "Delegate" MUST send a "REPLY" method
  to the "Organizer" and optionally, to the "Delegator". The "REPLY"
  method " SHOULD include the "ATTENDEE" property with the "delegated-
  from" parameter value of the "Delegator's" calendar address.

and 

3.2.3 REPLY 
... 
Component/Property  Presence
------------------- ----------------------------------------------
METHOD              1       MUST be "REPLY"
VEVENT              1+      All components MUST have the same UID
   ATTENDEE        1       MUST be the address of the Attendee
                           replying. 

This last line precludes doing what 4.2.5 advocates.  Since we have not precluded that a Delegator can delegate to > 1 Delegatee, I think the table entry for ATTENDEE under 3.2.3 should be amended to: 

    ATTENDEE        1+      MUST be the address of the Attendee
                           replying and MAY include addresses of 
                            any delegates. 

We (or the current maintainers of the corrections list) need to resolve this potentially nasty interop issue in the next update to the RFCs...

Bruce
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Bruce Kahn                                INet: Bruce_Kahn@xxxxxxxx
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