3. Freebusy Read URL

The read URL is used to get Freebusy information for a single user. (Note this document does not define a read URL to get the Freebusy information for a group.) A client or user could use this URL by putting it into an FBURL property of a VCARD as defined in IETF RFC 2739, Section 2.3.1, or it could be published in a calFBURL attribute of an LDAP directory record for a user as defined in IETF RFC 2739, Section 2.4.4.2.

This document does not address how the URL is obtained, either by the owner of the Freebusy information or by the user of that information.

It is assumed that the owner has some means of obtaining a URL from the calendaring client and that they can transfer it to interested users through some means, such as email.

When the content of a Freebusy URL is accessed, Freebusy information can be returned as VFREEBUSY iCalendar components, as defined by IETF RFC 2445. Such a VFREEBUSY iCalendar component is not meant to conform to the requirements of VFREEBUSY components in IETF RFC 2446. The VFREEBUSY component SHOULD conform to section “4.6.4 Free/Busy Component” of IETF RFC 2445. The VFREEBUSY component SHOULD NOT have a METHOD property, a client MUST ignore the METHOD property, if one is present. The VFREEBUSY component MAY follow the publish setting in regards to the ORGANIZER field. A client SHOULD ignore the ORGANIZER field. Since a Freebusy URL can only refer to a single user, a client will already know how to match the requested VFREEBUSY component to a user. A server MUST only return a single VFREEBUSY component.