Ask Slashdot: Open Source Calendaring 81
buzz lightyear asks:
"I'm trying to find out about developments in RFC2445 -
Internet Calendaring and Scheduling...and RFC2447 -
Internet Calendar Messaging. Can you tell me what the
state of play is regarding these functions? eCommerce is
starting to require such connectivity, irritating though
that may be..and I want to find out where the developments
are, if any. Needless to say some propriatary system will
fill the gap if left open long enough."
libical (Score:2)
http://softwarestudio.org/libical/index.html
proprietary (Score:1)
An integrated open source contacts/e-mail/scheduling pim based on open internet standards (preferably with a database backend) would be nice.
Existing Systems (Score:1)
In addition, calendaring is provided by MS Exchange/Outlook (very powerful and easy to use, I might add) and Lotus (altho' I've never used this product).
If Open Source wants to compete with these products, it's going to have to be *very* compelling, not simply on price but on features. These packages are based on in-depth studies of how offices actually work: the Open Source community has no analog to work with, and a huge installed base of well established solutions to compete with.
Re:Options and Existing Options (Score:1)
to export a web-viewable format for the
proprietary features.
I use exchange with the Netscape client
and someday hope to have access to the
closed calenderingsystem through the web.
It is not worth your salary to suffer
under Outlook, knowing that your mail is
stored locally (and on the server)
in a closed, proprietary format.
In other words, if you are an outlook &
exchange user you have *no* unmitigated
access to your data (other than through
untrusted executables, ie outlook & exchange).
blah blah blah blah (Score:2)
And from the menu bar... select File->Save As
Choose the 'text format'
There ya go, now your data is stored in ASCII format for you to view with the tool of your choice.
Some people are just amazing... I tell ya, sheesh.
Re:Open source? (Score:1)
I did check into the licensing of wxWin. It specifically states that the license is GPL compatible.
Furthermore, the Linux version of wxWin does use GTK+ as its lower-level toolkit. Gnomifying a wxWin application merely involves Gnomifying the wxWin library.
We chose wxWin because it can target both Linux and Windows users -- resulting in a smooth migration for all those users who can take their groupware client with them when they make that big switch.
To address the other issue you mentioned ... all Citadel sources are available through CVS, including the 'Daphne' GUI client. See the website for more info [mt-kisco.ny.us] on this.
Out of place? (Score:1)
It looks out of place because it's not finished, not because it's a wxWin app. The pixmaps, for example, are merely a few images quickly grabbed off the 'net just to put there as placeholders. Gnome integration isn't a high priority for me personally -- partially because I'm using KDE desktops right now, and partially because cross-platform is more important to me than having the tightest possible Linux integration is.
Design decisions are the developers' perogative. Anyone who wishes to stand by the sidelines and criticize them will be considered with all the credibility of Andrew Tannenbaum ranting that the Linux kernel is obsolete right out of the door.
If you'd like to join the project and create a Gnome/GTK front end to the system, we'd be thrilled to have you aboard! Please log on to Uncensored [mt-kisco.ny.us] and we'll discuss it there.
Re:Open source groupware project (Score:1)
Open source groupware project (Score:2)
Anyone interested in an open source groupware project should check out Citadel [mt-kisco.ny.us], which has made quite a lot of progress so far. We started with the existing code to a BBS program and moved forward from there. It already supports email, public folders, instant messaging, web/telnet/client access, and a bunch of other stuff. We all know about the un-scalability of BSD-style mailboxes, and Citadel will be an open source messaging platform with a true message store (the message store is already in place and works quite well).
Development help is currently needed in the areas of address books and calendaring/scheduling. This would be a great project for someone to join rather than try to write a calendaring app from scratch with no infrastructure behind it.
FrameCal with Outlook (Score:1)
/g
PS. Development is not approved yet.
PPS. Have not studied these RFCs ( here is RFC2445 [ietf.org]), but at first glance it appears that RFC2445 is not XML-based and therefore I am not very interested.
Only sane group-scheduling I've ever seen... (Score:1)
It used specially formatted messages dumped in your inbox (which SK would rifle through, not touching anything else) to exchange the information.
The thing that really impressed me was the fact that the messages were plain ASCII, and included instructions on how you could acknowledge the invitation by hand.
Mind you, I didn't use it myself---I had long ago gotten the NT box off my desk---but I was amazed at Starfish's intelligence.
Then SideKick '99 came out and they removed the feature.
Mike.
Re:>"users demand calendaring" (Score:1)
This is the key
A standard could still win
Open Source Internet Calendar Standards (Score:2)
Email me [mailto] if you're interested in our mailinglist.
We are trying to build a global network where everybody will run a calendar on their website and the data can be shared and used by people anybody who wants to use it. Once we get that up maybe we could build an open source, open content net syndication system for more that just calendar data.
Linuxcare working on specs (Score:1)
Re: Calendaring and Scheduling work in the IETF (Score:1)
> protocol that isn't mean't to share data
> between programs, but is the protocol with
> which data is shared. To my knowledge, those
> protocols have have made no effort to include
> location scheduling, groups, etc.
One of the key aspects of the IETF process is that anyone can participate. If you have concerns about the direction of the calendaring work and feel you have ideas and maybe even elbow grease to contribute, you should sign up on the appropriate mailing list(s) and participate.
If the current calendaring work looks like only entrenched vendors are designing it, that may be essentially what is happening (I personally don't know). It takes the participation of different folks with different perspectives in order to balance out a workng group's direction(s).
The IETF has built a robust infrastructure for open development of Internet protocols -- I strongly encourage anyone who is entertaining development of a multi-vendor IP-based protocol to carry it forward within the IETF framework so that we all can beneit from it.
Jeff
http://www.stanford.edu/~hodges/
http://www.KingsMountain.com/
Re: Calendaring and Scheduling work in the IETF (Score:4)
http://www.imc.org/ietf-calendar/
..is indeed the key resource. Closely following that is the "calsch" working group's "charter page"..
http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/calsch-charte
Before you run off and start doing any of your own things, I urge you to carefully review the current internet-drafts and RFCs produced by this group as well as review the working group's mailing list archive (which is available via the IMC-hosted page pointed-to above).
~Anyone~ is welcome to participate in the IETF. If you have ideas and cycles to contribute to this avenue, then you're definitely encouraged to get involved.
Note that by definition, IETF protocol standards are OPEN. Implementations are often open-source. For any protocol standard to progress beyond the "proposed standard" maturity level, there must be > 1 ~interoperable~ implementations. See this page..
http://www.KingsMountain.com/LDAPRoadmap/IETFSt
..for info about "IETF Document Series and How Standing is Denoted".
If you've never participated in the IETF and are curious about how to get started, take a look at..
http://www.ietf.org/join.html
http://www.ietf.org/newcomer/index.htm
http://www.ietf.org/tao.html
Jeff
http://www.stanford.edu/~hodges/
Korganizer? (Score:2)
Re:"Calendaring" is a sign of illiteracy (Score:2)
You should get used to the fact that this is English, specifically the kind of English used in computer industry jargon. Nouns become verbs all of the time (and visa versa).
--
Re:proprietary is WIN-ning (Score:3)
I don't know how moving from groupwise to exchange could be constructed as a loss for "open systems". They both seem equally closed.
Despite the fine long tradition of Unix/Internet "open standard" mail, 90% of corporations have historically run on closed systems such as ccMail, MS Mail, and so on. As these people get moved to modern systems like Notes and Outlook is just one proprietary system over another.
Don't go and assume that all IT managers who pick these proprietary solutions are braindead or getting Microsoft payola. The simple facts are:(A) Users demand calendaring
(B) All decent Calendaring solutions are proprietary*
(C) The company is going to go with a proprietary mail and calendaring solution.
An open, low cost mail/calendar program would sweep the market here. I hope some of the products mentioned here get out the door.
* I believe that Nescape submitted it's calendar protocol to the ITEF for standards consideration, but it's banged around in committee for a couple years with Lotus and MS that who knows what's happened to it.
--
Re:Options and Existing Options (Score:2)
Well, considering most of the original LDAP designers now work at Netscape, they arguably have the most advanced LDAP server, and _all_ of their products use LDAP (for configuration etc), it's safe to say that Netscape does LDAP
Netscape's calendar server is 100% LDAP-based; all the meeting info etc is stored on the LDAP server. I'm not sure what the situation is with the calendar client, though.
BTW, LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, not Local.
MS Products are not OS (Score:1)
I have noticed that there have been several post of MS Products or Lotus Notes. While they maybe real good and may have lots of features they are not Open Source Calendaring Solutions. I think that the person who orrigonally inquired about this was looking SPECIFICALLY for an open source solution, not just a good solution.
Also I do not that they are looking at the current user install base of existing NON Open Source.
To me it seems that they are looking for a product that is both Open Source and a Functional Internet/Intranet based Calendering tool.
I use ical, but ical is not what they are looking for. I tried plan once and it was okay, a bit more than I need.
Does and Open Source Internet/Intranet based Calendering tool exist that allows multiple users to view other peoples free times?
I think you are wrong. (Score:1)
I don't understand this sentence. Yes, the mail is stored on the server in a closed, proprietary format. Who cares what particular database they used to store messages on the server? All that matters to the end user is how they access the messages. I think computer people call that an abstract data type.
How the mail is stored locally depends on what your local client is. Since you can access you Exchange account via POP3 or IMAP4 there are a plethora of options. Personally, I used mutt and stored them in maildir format.
In other words, if you are an outlook & exchange user you have *no* unmitigated access to your data (other than through untrusted executables, ie outlook & exchange).
If you are an Exchange user and the administrator has set it up properly then you can use any POP3 or IMAP4 client you want. Does that count as "mitigated access to your data"?
I'm also confused as to why you are upset at having to use a proprietary client to access proprietary features.
Re:blah blah blah blah (Score:1)
You are going to do this for every single e-mail you receive? And duplicate the folder system that the (proprietary system) has?
And what about all the old e-mail ?
Isn't this what software is supposed to do ?
If designed right ?
?????
Some other people are even more amazing...
Don't need to tell ya
Nitin
-------
Re:I think you are wrong. (Score:1)
One of the problems is that if you ever decide to migrate to another mail tool for any reason, your old mailbox is unable to be simply copied over to the new tool.
Abstract data types are good. Abstract data types whose interfaces adhere to open standards are much better.
Seems to be guided by commerical interests (Score:2)
Personally I think that this is the wrong way to go. Personally I think what's needed is a system that similar to email. Imagine being able to subscribe to a scheduling-mailing-list that instead of just sending you an email with this years football games (for example), you can get this information added to your schedule and, given an rights system, updates can automatically be sent to you and you calendar can be updated accordingly.
Re: Calendaring and Scheduling work in the IETF (Score:2)
Personally, I feel that what's needed is an internet protocol that isn't mean't to share data between programs, but is the protocol with which data is shared. To my knowledge, those protocols have have made no effort to include location scheduling, groups, etc. Besides, what is needed isn't something with which one can schedule meetings (although that would be the basis), for scheduling to be used extensively on the internet, there will need to be ways to include data from web sides automatically and have some sort of time finding features built into the protocol.
Imagine being able to buy an airline ticket, the ticket is automatically added sent to your calendar where to acknoledge it (since it came from an outside source) and an acknoledgement is sent back to the airline so that they know that it wasn't a fraud. Or, on a more local level, you can schedule that your house is re-roofed while you are not there. Personally I think that scheduling is the next best thing on the net, but the only "open source" scheduling on the net right now isn't for the advancement of scheduling, its for the interaction of existing scheduling software between proprietary systems.
Re:proprietary is WIN-ning (Score:1)
Instead of burying your head in the sand ("MS doesn't exist, if I ignore it - it will go away") you should be looking at the product to see _why_ it is so good, then encourage others to make something better.
I'm looking into that HP OpenMail product (fortunately, we have some HP hardware here already) but the client will still be MS Outlook. Why? It's easy to use and integrated.
Scott
Re:Webcal (Score:1)
So I'm building a new one right now from scratch. I've taken a look at WebCal and it's nice, but it doesn't have everything I need - specifically it has no integration with an address organiser.
Sadly the new calendar I'm building is being written using ASP's and I very much doubt we are likely to release it for external use, but who knows, I may one day get a chance to build a third one in a nice open-source environment
Re: Calendaring and Scheduling work in the IETF (Score:1)
Just about anyone who needs to use a piece of calendar software already does. It probably isn't open source software, and even if some wonder piece of open source software came along that did everything that the best closed piece of calendaring software did, there is the problem with additional calendar accounts that I just mentioned. Somehow you would have to be able to migrate all of your existing appointments, reminders, etc. to the new wonder open-source calendar.
To do this migration, you need to have protocols and formats to facilitate the exchange of calendar information between calendar software. Happily this is exactly what the iCal stuff does. What you are calling "impotent" is actually the very stuff that is required to fulfill your vision of scheduling. Just think where we'd be today with email if nothing like SMTP or MIME was ever standardised. iCal is the critical first step.
Webcal (Score:1)
I'm using it to replace Outlook shared calendars, and it's made my users very happy. Next step is getting rid of Outlook, now that I've gotten rid of my only need for Exchange (I already run POP/STMP on a linux box) Outlook/Exchange is a god awful system, and I'm glad to be rid of it.
Webcal can be found at:
http://bulldog.tzo.org/webcal/webcal.html
and Michael promises a new release in a few weeks or so.
Re:Korganizer? (Score:1)
Re:what about "plan"? (Score:1)
Options and Existing Options (Score:1)
We're using Exchange (*retch*) and Outlook98 (*heave*). Now, granted, it's a very good tool for scheduling meetings (and thankfully it emails me when a meeting is put on my calendar) and cancelling them as well, it's also only available through Outlook. I hate Outlook. Matter of personal preference.
Netscape has "enterprise calendaring" in Communicator Professional, but it appears to rely on a proprietary Netscape server, probably Netscape Enterprise Server, to do it. I haven't seen it in action.
Yet another option is LDAP. Local Directory Access Protocol. LDAP can be extended to have calendaring as well, without too much difficulty I suspect. In my opinion, this is the best way possible to do it. LDAP is a widely supported protocol. Exchange, Netscape, and many other programs fully support LDAP for email address books, so why not calendaring? Netscape may even already support this; I'm not sure, though.
Anyways, just tossing out some options for ya. Hope it helps.
-RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
Re:Options and Existing Options (Score:1)
The client can store local calendars or it can connect to a server. The only server that it can connect to however, is the Netscape Calendar server. Netscape state that they will follow any standard as it becomes available.
The Netscape calendar server also allows for the ability to work with your calendar through web pages instead of their client if you wish to.
what about "plan"? (Score:2)
Plan displays a month calendar similar to xcal, except that
every day box is large enough to show appointments (in small print).
Appointments can be associated with the following information: date, time
and length (in time or days); an optional text message to be printed; an
optional script to be executed; early-warn and late-warn triggers that
precede the alarm time; repetitions (every nth day, etc.); optional fast
command-line appointment entry; flexible ways to specify holidays and
vacations; extensive context help; multiuser capability using an IP server
program (plan-server with access lists); and grouping of appointments into
files, per-user, private and others. Plan can be connected (with additional
software) to Apple Newton and PalmPilot PDAs.
Yeah, it's XML or LDAP but it sounds good, seems interoperable with other scheduling software, and has been around for a while. It used to ship with SuSe (I think) but I'm not sure if it does now.
-rana
Kronolith (Score:1)
For now, they offer no information, but the source is in cvs [horde.org].
Sendy
Re:proprietary is WIN-ning (Score:1)
And you want a cross platform IMAP server/client? Try UWash's imapd and good ol' Netscape.
Re:Exchange, Notes (Score:1)
Notes has a kind of "everything is a document database" paradigm. Your e-mail message store is just another document database, with no special capabilities. The flip side of this is that any document store can receive or send e-mail.
Notes builds its calendaring on top of this. Calendar entries are documents in your e-mail document database. You make entries in your own calendar by creating the appropriate document. You invite people to meetings or create entries by creating a document that will be sent to the other people's e-mail database. There are special views that show these calendar related documents in something that looks like a calendar.
This is a very powerful and flexible system, especially combined with Notes replication and offline database use. It means that if you develop in Notes, its very easy to incorporate scheduling into your app. However, I'd say its drawback is that it doesn't line up with how people think about group calendars. A more natural paradigm would be a shared pool of events from which you can select events or classes of events to create a custom calendar or group of custom calendars. Notes can accomplish the same thing, but it is not intuitive for a lot of people. I've had situations where people simply refuse to use Notes calendaring, because it doesn't make sense to them, even though it is perfectly functional and usable.
Re:proprietary is WIN-ning (Score:2)
...
please, i'd like to hear from someone how this will be stopped?
Write something better. Simple, really
Exchange is a compelling choice for a lot of businesses because (a) it integrates with their current environments [i.e. NT, Office]; (b) it is scalable; (c) although it does perform optimally only with proprietary protocols it does interoperate smoothly (out of the box) with foreign messaging systems [SMTP, X.400, Notes, CC Mail] and clients [LDAP, POP3, IMAP, even a frames-based HTML/Java client]; (d) the client software [Outlook] offers virtually unparalleled integration of email, tasks, calendars and contacts in a single application. I'm not an MS fan, particularly, but Exchange-Outlook really is a killer combination. The nearest competitor, Notes, is pretty pale in comparison.
Want to prevent Linux losing ground in the groupware market? Then write some groupware... currently there's nothing integrated out there, and I agree with you that this is an issue that requires resolution if Linux (less specifically, open source in general) wants to make inroads into this market.
Cheers
Alastair
Re:what about "plan"? (Score:1)
Exchange, Notes (Score:2)
I've never used Netscape's calendaring solution, or Notes.
Does anything currently use the vCalendar message format? Conceptually, it doesn't seem that difficult to add support for vCard and vCalendar-type messages to existing mailers, perhaps with two new types: "vAppointment" and "vMeeting."
At our office, we use three different messaging and calendaring systems. The sales weenines use GoldMine and Outlook. The Unix admins use Netscape, Pine, or Elm as it suits them. plus Outlook Web Access. Other people use OutLook. The Unix people use whatever calendaring program they want, if any. The sales people use a mix of Goldmine and Outlook to do calendaring. There's no standard way to exchange appointment and meeting requests, reserve conference rooms, etc.
A nice, open standard would be a good thing; get the software makers to cooperate.
Hmmm.. perhaps special IMAP-accessible folders could be used to store calendars... or a standard XML language -- CIML ("Calendaring Interchange Markup Language") could be used.
Re:Open source groupware project (Score:1)
Office2000 - OL2K (Score:2)
Internet Free/Busy (IFB) is a feature of Microsoft Outlook that allows users to see when others are free or busy and thus to more efficiently schedule meetings. Internet Mail Only (IMO) users have the option to publish their free/busy information to a user-specified Uniform Resource Locator (URL) file server. One can share this URL file server with all users or limit it to a specific set of users.
An Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard called iCal, is the basis for IFB. IFB uses a part of the iCal standard called iCalendar, an emerging standard for the format and storage of schedule information. iCalendar defines a structure for representing free-busy information in a standardized way.
___________________________________
I have been using OL2K for a while now (beta) and the internet free/busy info is pretty good. A bettere way to share information between distributed workers is the Net Folders feature.
Tis easy to just coordinate Calendaer, Contact and Notes info with my remote business partner, we can assign tasks to each other and every so often it automagically coordinates our contact, shared tasks and Calendar items. It is pretty useful, if there was a Linux equivalent that would rock, but i havnt heard of one.
have fun!
dave
Re:Seems to be guided by commerical interests (Score:1)
Re:Options and Existing Options (Score:1)
You meant of course, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol...
LDAP has nothing to do with being local or remote...in fact, ldap is neat because the database can actually be distributed across multiple servers anywhere on the internet seamlessly.
Re:SearchLight (Score:1)
I think you are missing one major key to Open Source. It is not *my* project. It is FREE!
Go back to sleep. You are right it is better to be part of the problem then part of the solution!
Anonymous Coward indeed!
SearchLight (Score:2)
I am actually fairly close to having a decent product. I am seeking volunteers to port some ASP applications (yuk) over to JSP. Right now I have a ASP NNTP/POP3/Notes/Problems Management/and Tasks code. All that would be necessary is to port these over to JSP and we would be done.
Any volunteers?
Check it out: http://relativity.yi.org/SearchLight [yi.org]
Open Source Implementations of ICalendar (Score:1)
I am creating a libary that implements the iCal RFCs, including iTIP, iMIP, iRIP and CAP. The web page for the libary is:
http://softwarestudio.org/libical/inde x.html [softwarestudio.org]
I am also working with a small team on a CS server and web-based client. These projects are in early design, and their web pages are at:
http://softwarestudio.org/Free Association/index.html [softwarestudio.org]
You can address any comments or questions to me at eric@softwarestudio.org
Re:Exchange, Notes (Score:1)
- from the File menu, choose Import and Export, you can choose to import calendar data from iCalendar format
- Open up an appointment, from the Action menu, you can choose to "forward as iCalendar"
- Recieve an iCalendar appointment, and it can get saved with the right start-time, end-time, etc.
So there is a raw beginning of interoperability there -- invitations across S/W borders. Maybe next a standard way of querying somebody's freebusy time?
Disclaimer: I work for MS.