State of Linux calendaring 2006

I spent some time at LinuxWorld yesterday talking with Kevin Carmony, president and CEO of Linspire, makers of a more customer-friendly version of desktop Linux. He had just announced Freespire 1.0, a free version of the Linspire OS, and I observed that Freespire didn't include a calendar out of the box. Carmony pointed me to the Linspire Calendar, which comes bundled with Linspire, but is really just Mozilla Calendar, available as such from Mozilla.org.

But there's more to the Linspire calendaring story. Carmony and his vice president of business development, Randy Linnell, are both veterans of Franklin Covey Co. Carmony was vice president of technology there, after Franklin Covey bought Carmony's company, NewQuest Technologies, which made a personal information manager, Ascend, that I vaguely recall before the acquisition. Before the acquisition, Franklin Covey really didn't have a digital calendar. Linnell was with Franklin Covey for 11 years with titles such as director of customer service and director of technology.

Point being, these guys know calendaring. Carmony is totally sympathetic with our quest to drain the swamp. We both agree Mozilla hasn't done enough work on interop. The Linspire folks looked at Chandler, but it's aiming a bit high for the average customer, and it's been further delayed by server issues. (At OSCON, the Chandler team revealed that they've been forced to abandon efforts to build its Cosmo server on top of Apache Jackrabbit.)

Many desktop Linux distributions, such as Novell's OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, and Fedora, include the Ximian Evolution calendar. Evolution now supports CalDAV, a swamp-draining move that gets it part of the way toward interop nirvana. To get true nirvana and sync with most mobile devices, you still have to inject something like the Novell Groupwise Mobile Server, which is free--provided you've already bought a bunch of other Novell server software.

Do you think Mozilla Calendar is good enough? (I don't.) Are you willing to wait for Chandler? (I'm not.) Is the Ximian solution good enough? (Only if you're provided your calendar through an Enterprise with a capital "E".)

Maybe the Linux community should rally around someone like Carmony, who knows calendaring, and build something else?

Once Desktop Linux has a widespread, popular calendar, could its popularity help drain the swamp faster? (I think so.)

Apple iCal server is under the Apache open source license

Ted Leung points to Apple's clarification that yes, indeed, the Apple CalDAV-compliant iCal server is being provided under the Apache 2.0 open source license. This is a good thing for CalDAV and for calendar interoperability. SwampDrain Factor: +1.

Apple announces iCal server, mainstream press misses the story

Apple press release: "For the first time, Mac OS X Server will include a calendar server for users and groups to coordinate events, schedule meetings, reserve resources and use time more effectively. iCal Server uses the open CalDAV standard for integration with leading calendar programs, including iCal 3 in Leopard, Mozilla’s Sunbird, OSAF’s Chandler and Microsoft Outlook."

The mainstream tech media promptly ignored this aspect of Apple's Leopard announcements today. This speaks volumes about the work remaining to raise the profile of interoperable calendar technology in the popular press. Even if more and more users are clamoring for it.

Check out this diagram, and Plaxo's role in it

Ian Forrester diagrams calendar interoperability that works for him. It's the first time I've heard that Plaxo has a Web-based calendar service.

Imagining calendar interop nirvana on Inside the Net

I was delighted to be the featured guest on today's Inside the Net podcast, speaking with Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte about the latest goings-on in swamp draining. Leo got me to describe calendar interop nirvana, and I talked a bit more about this week's news from Calconnect.

Interoperable free/busy info demoed by Calconnect

Thanks to Dave Thewlis, executive director of Calconnect, for letting me know today that the organization this week demonstrated interoperable free/busy info flowing between different types of calendar software. The press release is here and there's also a PDF-based presentation online describing the demo in detail.

The demo exchanged free/busy info between seven different calendaring systems: Bedework, Google Calendar, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, Oracle Calendar, TimeBridge and OSAF's Chandler. CalDAV was a big technological component of making it work.

It will be a while before the fruits of this interoperability work boil down to average calendar users like me, but it's good to see this progress being made at the enterprise level.

Gimme that one-time religion

Okay, okay, I get it. Calendar interoperability is either impossible, too tough to define, it's going to cost me $$ every month, I'll have to look at a bunch of ads all the time, or all my privacy belongs to my service provider (gotta love Software-As-A-Service).

Can't someone on this planet create a piece of packaged software, so I can pay One Price and achieve synchronization/free busy sharing between a Pocket PC and Apple's iCal? Do I really have to buy Office 2007 to pay one time only?

CompanionLink for Google Calendar

Blog post from The Personal Productivity Show:

"CompanionLink for Google Calendar™ is a two-way synchronization solution for people that want to extend their Google Calendar onto their desktop calendar systems or mobile devices. It can synchronize Google Calendar with all the latest Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Palm, and BlackBerry devices in addition to Outlook, Lotus Notes, Palm Desktop, and Groupwise applications."

The blog poster goes on to say:

I’ve installed the 14-day trial of CompanionLink but I’m having trouble getting it to connect to Google Calendar. It keeps telling me my email address or password is wrong, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t. So I’ll keep trying.

Yahoo! Calendar to iCal converter

I just discovered Manas Tungare's Yahoo! Calendar to iCal converter. Swampdrain rating: +1.

The difference between import/export and sync

Yahoo! has a succinct description of the difference between import/export and sync.

Firefox calendar lives! With some confusion

I was pleased to discover today that there is an updated calendar plug-in for Firefox 1.5. But Mozilla needs to get the word out better. In fact, my copy of Firefox 1.5 was still telling me the old calendar plug-in wasn't working -- it continued to tell me this when it was receiving updates from Mozilla. It also wasn't able to find the new plug-in. You can find it here.

getCals lets iPods grab Google Calendars

Johnny Gizmo has a script called getCals that lets iPods (those with calendars) grab Google Calendars.

Google Calendar API

Google Calendar has an API. Thanks to Wired writer Lucas Graves, who brought this to my attention.

Office 12 beta likes Google Calendar

With the help of a product developer within Microsoft, I've been able to open iCal invitations, generated by a beta release of Office 12, within Google Calendar. But our similar attempts to open these invitations within Apple's iCal have been unsuccessful. The ball may end up in Apple's court. This isn't the first time I've heard that Apple's implementation of iCal is a bit odd. But it is the first time I've ever heard of Apple iCal not opening an .ics file. It brings to mind the old adage, "Be conversative in what you write, and liberal in what you read." Recently I read of a Microsoft official stressing the importance of bilaterial interoperability agreements as being at least as important than supporting standards. If the Office 12 problems persist, such an agreement between Apple and Microsoft may be in order.

As for myself, I'm still eager to route around Outlook. How will Windows Mobile support Windows Vista Calendar? And, more importantly, will Windows Vista Calendar run on Windows XP, like so many other pieces of Vista?

View all calendar mashups

The Web 2.0 Mashup Matrix includes info on available mashups between the major Web 2.0 calendar programs and other Web 2.0 services. Not exactly calendar interoperability nirvana, but another intriguing step forward. SwampDrain Factor: +1.

SpaceShare takes calendar sharing to the highways

SpaceShare is cool. It's a way to offer or find a carpool ride to an event. The impetus is on the event organizer to sign on. Judging from the current list of events, you won't find any rides to monster-truck pulls, but if you're into the San Francisco Mime Troupe, check it out.

The Office 2007 iCal challenge

It's time to start trying to settle this Office 2007 iCal question, but I refuse to install the beta software myself. I still don't need that level of grief.

When I was at InfoWorld in 1989, a test I was able to run on a beta of dBase IV made headline news, thanks to the cooperation of a beta-tester who was never named.

It's time for another test. If you are running a beta release of Office 2007, please create an event on your Outlook 2007 calendar for test purposes. Then, please invite me to this event by creating and sending an iCal invitation to this event to calendarswamp@gmail.com. I'll try to open each of them in one or more iCal clients and report the results here. If possible, I'll also reply to your invitation and will be interested in knowing if the reply gets through to you.

I'll even accept invites from Microsoft employees, but I'll also disclose that these invites were sent by someone at Microsoft. Otherwise, I won't identify anyone who participates, just in case you're worried about violating a Microsoft non-disclosure agreement. (I've got 25 years of experience with protecting sources, with no complaints yet.)

Linux-based Nokia tablet comes with Outlook calendar sync -- for a monthly fee

The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, which Amazon currently sells for less than $400, can be used with an offline calendar to be synched to Outlook, but there's a small monthly fee. Darla Mack has the details.

Will Crossbow support iCal directly?

Well, Microsoft once again opts for an aggressive product code name: Crossbow, for the next version of Windows Mobile ("Hailstorm" was fun too, but Crossbow is more, shall we say, visceral). This InfoWorld story speaks of Crossbow having "strong links" with Office 2007, but no mention of Windows Calendar and/or iCal. If Crossbow does support the latter two, I can delete Outlook from my hard drive and simplify my calendar sharing, provided I can swallow the Windows Vista hairball.

Technorati tag: Crossbow

Event Share Framework site goes dark

Missing, presumed dead: The Web site http://www.esfstandard.org, which had tracked the RSS-based calendar-sharing extension called Event Share Framework (ESF). ESF itself looks dead. Possible killer: Microsoft's SSE. No reward posted yet for the whereabouts of ESF, but more proof that just because something says RSS doesn't mean it solves calendar interoperability problems.