© 2008 The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium, Inc.
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The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium, Inc.
4390 Chaffin Lane
McKinleyville
California 95519
United States of America
www.calconnect.org
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All documents included in the zip file for Meet CalConnect 2008 are considered part of CD 0812 and the public disclaimer included by reference above applies to all contents of the file.
Prague, Czech Republic
Gary Schwartz
Director, Communications & Middleware Technologies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Bedework Project Leader
CalConnect Vice President & Chair of FreebusyTechnical Committee
Bedework, our open source, Java-based implementation of CalDAV
The relationship between CalConnect and the open source movement
RPI’s reasons for joining CalConnect
The benefits which RPI enjoys from active participation in CalConnect, both as calendar developers and as a research university
The Rensselaer School was established in Troy, NY, in 1824 by Stephen Van Rensselaer “for the purpose of instructing persons … in the application of science to the common purposes of life.”
It is
Palmer C. Ricketts 2nd ed History of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1914) …the first school of science and school of civil engineering, which has had a continuous existence, to be established in any English-speaking country.
Bedework is
a comprehensive calendaring and events system
open source
platform independent (Java)
modular & extensible
intended for higher education
and… STANDARDS COMPLIANT
iCal : RFC 2445 (2446, 2447)
CalDAV : RFC 4791
CalDAV Scheduling (in draft)
Vavailability (in draft)
Why? …interoperability!
Database -Hibernate
Application server
Authentication
Internationalization / localization
Portal — JSR168
Presentation
Standards compliance
Scalability
Features:
Distributed, fine grained administration
Administrative groups
Location and contacts management
Access control & sharing
Stand-alone & portlet implementations
Highly customizable look and feel
Interoperable with CalDAV desktop clients — currently Mozilla Lightning and Apple’s iCal
In production:
Bennington College (US)
Bishop’s University (Canada)
Cornerstone University (US)
Dalhousie University (Canada)
Duke University (US)
Montana State University (US)
Public University of Navarra(Spain)
Queens University (Canada)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (US)
University of British Columbia (Canada)
University of Maine, Fort Kent (US)
University of Maryland (US)
University of Chicago (US)
University of Washington (US)
In development:
Brown University (US)
Cornell University (US)
Rutherford Appleton Lab (UK)
Stockholm University (Sweden)
Yale University (US)
Others…
not a bricklayer
not a psychiatrist
not an escalator
not a mechanic
not an engineer
not a coal miner
Or
An open source theorist
Open Source Initiative
The ‘open source’ label was invented February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California
Wanted an alternative to “free software”
‘Open source’ coined by Chris Peterson
Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the 10 enumerated criteria
Product provenance
Licensing terms
Support
Governance
Sometimes east meets west -like when Georgia Tech integrated Zimbra (proprietary version) into Sakai (open source) using CalDav, facilitating future integrations, open source or otherwise.
Open source is inherently neither better nor worse than other software development or distribution models
Open source provides another option, representing a different value proposition
Whereas many university people enjoy a spiritual affinity for open source software, our interest is more pragmatic. As a campus-wide development group, technologies and products with no license or usage fees are critical to providing solutions which can be deployed with impunity. Our web foundation is largely built atop products and technologies which have no usage fees, allowing us to deploy as many instances, servers, CPU’s, etc as necessary.
RPI relies heavily on and benefits from open source software but seldom contributes to open source. We believe this contribution will enhance Rensselaer’s reputation in the area of software development.
Bedework’s preoccupation with standards and interoperability is in large part recognition that in many organizations, Bedework is unlikely to be the only calendaring product in an enterprise.
The ability to share and exchange data with other calendaring products and environments is an important key to Bedework’s future well-being as a product and a project.
Standards compliance is the key to Bedework’s success -but
potentially useful features that are not standards compliant impede interoperability.
We could be more ingenious but sometimes no way to have our standards cake and eat it too.
The heart wants what it wants.
CalConnect vendor members
Proprietary only
Open source only — Bedework, Mozilla, OSAF
Dual mode — Apple, Zimbra
Mixed — Google, IBM, Oracle, Sun, Symbian/Nokia, Microsoft
The world is flat — open source, proprietary source, no source — everyone is equal partner
Sometimes open source organizations have more flexibility and agility and fewer constraints to participate, to speak publicly
Open source reference implementations are extremely critical in achieving adoption of open standards for software interoperability.
Standards organizations are the only way to get a level playing field w.r.t new open source applications for learning — that won’t happen unless the open source projects/communities participate.
Join CalConnect to add adopters? Unlikely. More likely to find collaboration partners than customers
CalConnect members generally get “it” when “it”= “open source”.
CalConnect vendor members generally get “it” where “it”= good products benefit from interoperability, becoming stronger, more marketable products.
In Dreaming in Code”, Scott Rosenberg referring to Eric Raymond’s “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” said,
Scott Rosenberg Raymond identified 2 key prerequisites …the rise of a cooperative ethos built around a leadership style like Torvald’s that encouraged newcomers and welcomed contributions, and strove to maximize the number of qualified participants
We have history of collaborative (but not OSS) software development — MTS
We have a history of working with high quality people — MTS
We saw first-rate people doing exciting work and we wanted to be part of it.
We were showing off as observers at a CalConnect Roundtable, and had to join to save face.
Like the Beatles said:
Beatles And, in the end, the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make
Active participation in CalConnect
Chair FREEBUSY Technical Committee
Chair Timezone Technical Committee
iSchedule, CalDAV Technical Committees
Publicity Committee
Steering Committee
Board of Directors
CalConnect has many research university members. Getting together with like institutions to discuss C&S and other topics of mutual interest.
Interoperability Test Events are invaluable
Influencing/informing standards is useful, and a responsibility
We believe in interoperability and open standards — CalConnect promotes both