.. title: Pushing the iCalendar Standard
.. slug: pushing-icalendar
.. date: 2019-01-30 17:52:21 UTC+01:00
.. tags: icalendar, nextcloud, ebu, society
.. category: 
.. link: 
.. description: 
.. type: text

A few years ago I found out that my local waste disposal company offered
an Android App `mymüll.de <https://www.mymuell.de/>`_ with the
capability to remind me the day before the collections.  Back then it
was easy to install and it saved me a few times from missing to put
out the garbage cans, so I did not think any further of it.  Only when
the App on a later update started to request privileges that were
surely not needed for a simple reminder service, I revisited the
topic.

In the meantime I have an established calendaring solution in the form
of my own `NextCloud <https://nextcloud.com/>`_ server and I wondered
why it would not be possible to import the dates into a shared
calendar.  Most Apps on Android nowadays seem to exist because of the
data collection features much rather than the actual functionality, so
getting rid of yet another one is a worthwhile aim.  Although people
not seem to care, I for myself have decided not to install apps
anymore requiring privileges not related to their intended task.

.. image:: /images/icalendar.png
   :width: 250
   :align: center
   :alt: iCalendar.org

.. TEASER_END

Sure enough the company was offering links with iCalendar downloads,
but unfortunately the import into the Calendar App from Nextcloud
failed for every single event in the file.  Not good.  A quick test
with the `Evolution <https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution/>`_
groupware of the GNOME Desktop Environment yielded the same result,
but luckily with line numbers of the errors.  As is easy with public
standards, it wasn't at all a big problem to find the latest iCalendar
standard, i.e. `RFC5545 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5545>`_ and
check for myself.  Indeed the data files violated the standard in a
trivial way.  As the files are plain text, correcting the errors with
trusty old ``sed`` and testing again was a short exercise and
confirmed the analysis.

So I contacted the `Entsorgungs-Betriebe der Stadt Ulm
<https://www.ebu-ulm.de/abfall/abfuhrtermine.php>`_ beginning of last
November and kindly asked them if it would be possible to fix the
problem once and for all at the source.  Not having received any reply
I kind of forgot about it again until beginning of January.  Realizing
that shared calendar with the manually fixed entries was empty for all
of the new year I revisited the download section and tried again.
Seeing the same error prompted me to write a kind followup to my old
querying if the mail was lost for some reason or if I should contact
someone else responsible for the download section.

This time I received a mail in only a few hours and the confirmation
that my original mail had indeed been received and forwarded to the
external team responsible for the website.  Only two days later I
received another mail that the bug had indeed been fixed and that
tests with NextCloud had also been positive. Thanks EBU!

In this spirit it may be interesting to be reminded of ancient wisdom
that sometimes seem almost lost::

   Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 78
   
   Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
   Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
   It has no equal.
   The weak can overcome the strong;
   The supple can overcome the stiff.
   Under heaven everyone knows this,
   Yet no one puts it into practice.
   Therefore the sage says:
        He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people
             is fit to rule them.
        He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves
             to be king of the universe.
   The truth often seems paradoxical.