More Mac iCal liberation news

Yesterday Ben Brown clued me into NotMac, "a free, open-source utility for using the client-side dotMac services provided by Apple." Interesting that Dave Winer (or someone claiming to be him) contributed $100 toward its development.

This could be the thin end of a wedge that turns Apple's iCal calendaring services into an open standard that could be moved to any non-Apple platform. This might all happen much faster than the prospect of Apple reaching out to sync with non-Apple calendars.

In fairness to Apple, the next release of Mac OS X, called Leopard, will also help open up iCal to wider use. Quoting from this Apple developer Web page:

"The Calendar Store lets any application display, create, and edit iCal data."