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Mozilla The Internet

Mozilla.org Announces Open Source Calendar 265

Posted by timothy from the little-things-that-count dept.
Mike Potter writes: "According to an article at Mozillazine.org, Mozilla.org will be releasing an open source calendar. "Thanks to an extremely generous offer of code from OEone Corporation, the new calendar project will have a significant codebase to start from. OEone make Penzilla, an operating environment for internet devices based on Linux and Mozilla. ... For more information on, and a technical description of Penzilla Calendar, see OEone's website." I think we'll be seeing a lot more applications built with Mozilla, now that its stable." Mundane as it may sound, with tabs in place (and behaving more sanely), a good calendar is probably my most-wished-for Mozilla feature. The screenshots certainly bode well for this one.
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Mozilla.org Announces Open Source Calendar

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  • A custom E-mail server....multi platform, free, F- exchange server+outlook.

  • Open Source Calendar? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mike Schiraldi ( 18296 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @12:24PM (#2484056) Homepage Journal
    Awesome! I always thought Thursday was a stupid name. I think i'll call it Mikesday.
  • making it possible for one person to access another's calander (given proper permissions) and viola! An open source alternative to MS Exchange!
    • This will lead to security problems... you know the type

      This is a mail from XXX , we need you to do this with your calender.

      • not necessarily ... Exchange systems permissions are set by an administrator, so if someone were to send an email saying "Do this" where "this" is removing permissions, it'll get the sender no where.

        So if an open source version were being used, one would have an admin set up the permissions such that users could not modify them.

  • feature creep? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @12:26PM (#2484065) Homepage
    Isn't this creeping featuritis? All I want for Christmas is Mozilla 1.0...
    • Gerv has stated on MozillaZine that while the intent is to get it into the tree so interested outside developers can start messing around with it, they won't be actively working on it until after Mozilla 1.0 is released.

    • Re:feature creep? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zmooc ( 33175 )
      Yes, but that they're going to start a calendar-project doesn't mean that it will slow the mozilla-development. In theory... I sure hope they keep these things seperated. In my opinion they should also have separated the browser from the mail&news-client etc.
      • It won't necessarily slow things down and if it does it'll be for the right reasons.


        One of the principle goals of Mozilla is to produce an application platform for developing applications just like this. It goes without saying that the more disparate kind of apps you have hammering away on this platform, the more robust and stable it becomes.


        So if it does slow things down, it's only because it's finding bugs that would otherwise bite later on.

    • Re:feature creep? (Score:2, Redundant)

      by edwdig ( 47888 )
      a) The Mozilla team is simply checking it in to the tree so that other people can work on it. They aren't touching it until after 1.0.

      b) The browser is the only part of Mozilla that is required. Everything else can be turned off during the install.

      So what's the problem?
    • Yes, it is. But at least this is in the 'add-on' category, rather than being an 'integrated' feature.

      Just so long as it isn't so integrated that an 'invitation to a meeting' that gets automatically added to your calendar will run an accompanying script in the process.

      I'd really hate it if this 'Look-Out' work-alike managed to provide work-alike functionality for malware.

  • PIM's on Computers not such a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by euroderf ( 47 ) <a@b.c> on Friday October 26, 2001 @12:30PM (#2484085) Journal
    I like PIM's, but myself I stick to a file-o-fax. It doesn't crash or lose data, and is easy to read, never runs out of batteries and is portable. I don't see what advantage a computer would bring, it would tie me down and lose data.

    But my main gripe is the interactivity of the new PIM's, like Outlook Express in Office XP. They allow one's data to be inspected by one's superior, and make for an invasion of personal space by the hierarchy at work.

    One of my girlfriends Joselle had to cancel a date with me because her boss inserted a work appointment at the same time, without notice, and she had to obey.

    The only way to be truly provate and control your schedule is to have it written down privately. Computers allow for the domination of one's calendar by the digital elite.

    • Yeah, yeah, no batteries, but once a year, it's time to refill the pages! And all the pens you have to buy. Now if you said you bought a memory-enhancing tape and no longer need to keep appointment notes, then I would be impressed.
    • What does her boss setting up a meeting with her have to do with PIM's on a computer? Was the reason he set the meeting at that time because he saw that she had a personal engagement, or because he needed to see her? How is inserting a meeting into your electronic schedule by your boss any more binding that your boss walking up to you and telling you that you need to be a this meeting?
    • >>> I like PIM's, but myself I stick to a file-o-fax. It doesn't crash or lose data, and is easy to read, never runs out of batteries and is portable. I don't see what advantage a computer would bring, it would tie me down and lose data

      Computers don't run out of ink. :) Seriously, having your schedule/task list/address book on a computer, or PDA for that matter, isn't necessarily faster than pen and paper, but it does allow more things to be done with the information that's on it.

      >>> But my main gripe is the interactivity of the new PIM's, like Outlook Express in Office XP. They allow one's data to be inspected by one's superior, and make for an invasion of personal space by the hierarchy at work.

      It being a M$ product not withstanding, I rather like the idea of my boss(es) being able to check my tasks and my progress without having to bug me with meetings and phone calls, and just let me work.

      >>> One of my girlfriends Joselle had to cancel a date with me because her boss inserted a work appointment at the same time, without notice, and she had to obey.

      Sorry to hear that, but that's what bosses tend to do.

      >>> The only way to be truly provate and control your schedule is to have it written down privately. Computers allow for the domination of one's calendar by the digital elite.

      I disagree. Collaboration, like this, is necessary to be more efficient in the workplace. Your boss(es) having the ability to check your tasklist and schedule can alleviate confusion and conflicts that would only lead to more stress for you and everyone else. Really, it's a good thing. :)

    • Wow (WARNING: OFFTOPIC) (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by mjh ( 57755 )
      WARNING: THIS POST OFF TOPIC

      PIM's vs. paper... very interesting, but what really caught my attention in your post was this little gem:

      One of my girlfriends Joselle had to cancel a date with me because...
      Wow, not only did you have a date scheduled, but you've got more than one girlfriend!

      Man, being a geek ain't what it used to be. I guess Scott Adams was right [stanford.edu]

  • I just did a search (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ajuda ( 124386 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @12:31PM (#2484093)
    I just did a search for "calendar" on freshmeat... 131 projects found
    Do we really need mozilla to include yet another thing which we can just find somewhere else? Before we know it, Mozilla will include its own kernel! And they are wondering why 1.0 is soooo far off?
    • Most, if not all of them suck. Here are a few quick things I've found:

      Many are based on things like php and zope, requireing both a webserver and application server software. A number of them require mysql or other database software. Many are entirely web based (from my experience limits usability for calendar software), a few others are only commandline. And because we are talking about freshmeat, I would bet a large portion of that 131 projects are still in an early stage of developement and simply not usable.

      Only 10 have a popularity rating above 0.00%
      Only 7 have a viability rating above 0.00%

      Mozilla is/will be both stable and platform independant. It will not require a database back end. It also probably will not require you to view your calendar in simple html.

      • Re:I just did a search (Score:2, Insightful)

        by cjpez ( 148000 )
        Vitality ratings on Freshmeat are a joke. Unless you release a new version every day, you don't have a prayer of making over the 2% mark. (I'm exaggerating, but still.)

        Linux itself has 21%. This for an OS that has a new version every three weeks or so (not counting the Alan Cox "Hi I'm a Juggernaut and Can Compose Kernel Diffs In My Head" releases). It says that vitality is "based on age of project, number of announcements and date of last announcement." So if I don't announce every CVS checkin my project isn't healthy?

        Bah. Freshmeat's vitality system has GOT to be revamped. I'm not saying it's not a potentially good measure of a project, but I think it's way off.

        Aside from that, though, yeah. If more people decided to work WITH existing projects to make them BETTER instead of setting off to build "the best darn CD player there is for X11," we might have less projects, but the overall quality of each would be better.

      • I have to point out, that sourceforge carries huge amounts of uncreated programs. Freshmeat deals exculsivly in programs that actually have working code you can use. Try and find a program on freshmeat that doesn't have a stable version available. Now try and find a program that does have a stable version available in sourceforge. You can't find either can you?
        (JK about the second part, but I really wish sourceforge out have seperate sections for projects with stable branches, and ones without, but then again, thats what freshmeat is for)
    • Before we know it, Mozilla will include its own kernel!

      STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS!
  • On what planet does it make sense to integrate a calendar into a web browser? A web browser is by nature a real-time program -- you decide you want to view a page, you view the page, you walk away happy. A calendar application, while useful in general, adds no value to Mozilla.

    Why doesn't this company donate the source for this calendar to something with more reach like a windowing environment? I'd *love* to have a calendar nicely integrated with the whole computer, not just the web browser. It'd also do a lot to convince more novice users that Linux is a friendly environment.

    • Re:why not give this to gnome or kde instead? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by elefantstn ( 195873 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @12:43PM (#2484159)

      First of all, I think they're donating to Mozilla because it's built on Moz technology (XUL, etc.). But since it will presumably be GPL (like the rest of Mozilla), there's no reason Gnome or KDE can't use it. What does it matter if it was donated "to" them? It's GPL, Gnome/KDE are GPL, if it's good, put it in there!

    • why not gnome or kde instead? XUL is why. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well if you went to the Oeone [oeone.com] website, you would see that the whole ui has been built in XUL. It makes more sense therefore to give it to Mozilla than to KDE/GNOME who already are working on calendaring programs, and wouldn't appreciate porting XUL code to QT/GTK.
    • Mozilla is more cross platform than Gnome or KDE (i.e., it runs on Windows at least as well as Linux, from what I've seen). If OEone wants to target Windows users, then using XPCOM and the other Mozilla technologies make more sense than Gnome or KDE. Remember, they're not using the Mozilla browser, but rather the cross platform toolkit that the browser also happens to be built on top of.

    • It makes sense to integrate an e-mail application with a web browser:

      • People want to read rich HTML e-mail.
      • People want to compose rich HTML, and the same composer is used in the web browser to create web -pages.


      Now, it makes sense to integrate a a calendar application with an e-mail client, for obvious reasons.

      You might say that what we need is a set of interfaces so *different* applications can coexist. But that is what Mozilla is! Everything is a component providing a set of functions (exported via XPCOM) to the rest of mozilla.

    • Why don't you take the code and integrate it with KDE or Gnome yourself? You have the itch, scratch it. All the tools and a big pile of source code are there. Welcome to Open Source!

      Mozilla is not just a browser. The purpose of Mozilla is to provide a higher quality software base for the Netscape Communications Suite, that's why the Mozilla source was opened in the first place. A communications suite certainly has need of a calendar app, and therefore this third party add-on does add value to the Mozilla package.

      It wasn't given to KDE or Gnome directly because it wasn't designed for KDE or Gnome. And why would it be? OEone is a company, and companies want their product to be available to the maximum number of people possible. Mozilla targets almost 100% of desktops, more than any other software I know of. KDE is used on maybe 1% of desktops. I don't think it's any mystery why a company would design their software to work with Mozilla rather than KDE.

      It was extremely gracious and generous of OEone to release the source to their code. It is a gift to the community! We should say thank you, and if it isn't useful to you, either do the work to make it useful or shut the hell up.

      If this is the kind of attitude companies are met with when they decide to open their source code, is it any wonder so many companies don't?

  • So much for releasing Mozilla by the end of next year.
    • The calendar project is donated by outside contributors, and it won't be heavily worked on after 1.0. I doubt if we'll even see it in the nightly builds anytime sonn. Which part of the article says it'll postpone the 1.0 release?
  • Want an *excellent* calendar? See: http://korganizer.kde.org/

    Korganizer has alarms, ical import, html export, kmail integration, and more. And it isn't massively bloated by Mozilla things like XUL, XPCOM and it's nasty brethren.
    Some screenshots:
    http://korganizer.kde.org/screenshots/main.gif
    http://korganizer.kde.org/screenshots/event.gif
    http://korganizer.kde.org/screenshots/preference s. gif
    http://korganizer.kde.org/screenshots/webexport. gi f
    http://korganizer.kde.org/screenshots/find.gif

    Use it enjoy it, and contribute to it.
    • The future of KDE Personal Information Management applications looks good. Instead of going the "me-too-Outlook-clone" route, they are keeping each application separate (but still connected). The KDE PIM website [kde.org] has info on the various programs in the KDE PIM suite, and this page [kde.org] has a roadmap for future development for 3.0.
    • Too bad korganizer requires a lot of KDE and Qt libraries, and it probably requires you to run bits and pieces of the KDE desktop. (In terms of bloat, if you do run the whole KDE desktop, it takes up more than 100M of memory, so don't point fingers at Mozilla.) And I have yet to see an actual distribution of KDE software for an OS other than Linux.

      In terms of functionality, I didn't find it too impressive either: limited drag-and-drop functionality, little groupware functionality, little web integration, lots of annyoing dialog boxes.

      KOrganizer is s nice looking, basic organizer. But as far as I'm concerned, it isn't the ultimate organizer by a long shot. A calendar add-on to Mozilla reaches more people and takes up less space. I don't know how good the OEone calendar is, but it certainly makes a lot of sense.

  • In other news... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 )

    In addition to MozCalander, and MozOffice, the Mozilla organization has annouced MozSink, an Open Source replacement for the Kitchen Sink(tm). It is believed that this could revolutionize Open Source development.

    • In addition to MozCalander, and MozOffice, the Mozilla organization has annouced MozSink, an Open Source replacement for the Kitchen Sink(tm). It is believed that this could revolutionize Open Source development.


      I wondered when Emacs would get embedded in Mozilla ;-)

      Cheers,

      Toby Haynes

    • Are they going to add MozColander as well?
  • Could someone explain to me what a calendar has to do with a web browser? This seems to me to be extreme feature creep, the likes of which I've never seen before. With more and more bloat, IE is starting to look light in comparison. Is it perhaps an attempt to delay releasing an actual consumer ready version of Mozilla?

    • Re:A calendar? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Kelson ( 129150 )
      Read further. This won't get developed until AFTER Mozilla 1.0.

      As for browser/calendar integration, I think it may be more associated with the email client than the browser.
  • The project is a bit far fro my immediate scope - but is teh system compatible with non-gregorian calendar systems? I know most of peopel from live the Gregorian way, but there are a few of us that use something different [tortuga.com] - like the 13-moon calendar that the planet acutally functions on - not some arbitrary separations of nomenclature.

    13 moon positions and 20 sun positions over 13 moon cycles that are each 28 days in length. Which also happens to be the cycle which most females who are 'regular' have their menstruation periods by. This was the calendar system of the Mayans and happens to be the only system which acurately measures the procession of the Equinoxes - which has a much larger periodicity than most people think about....

    -shpoffo
    • Yah, I'll switch to that when the world switches to Metric Time [zapatopi.net]

    • "Foundation for the Law of Time." Right. Galactic Tones and Solar Seals. Sheesh. Where's the Golden Solar Kool-Aid?
    • I can understand a different calander system, but please don't tell me you buy into that crock that changing an arbitrary label given to structure systems will lead to world peace.


      Course, if you do believe that I'll gladly sell you a pencil that will take care of all of your problems and let you obtain a perfect state of zen. Say hi to Xenu for me, too.

    • We do not know how events will unfold in the next few years, but we had already set a goal, summer 2004, as the final opportunity for establishing the Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Plan. The strategy to accomplish this plan has also been prepared - the Campaign for the New Time. Through this Campaign we must now mobilize for the New Time of Peace.

      While I share the view that alternative calendars should be supported, this is some of the stupidest claptrap I've seen! Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Plan? Change to it, and we will forever rid the world of war? That must be one of the most escapist solutions I've seen! Apart from that whole "kiss your freedoms good-bye" stuff.

      • A new calendar will make all the evil people in the world go away? Are we all going to hold hands, stand in a circle and sing hippie campfire songs too? I hope they plan on sedating the rest of the planet with whatever mind altering drugs they are on, because that's probably the only way their fantasy would have a slightest chance of ever getting off the ground. Peace and freedom are usually things that one has to fight for. Or as Mr. Jefferson put it "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants".

    • 13 moon positions and 20 sun positions over 13 moon cycles that are each 28 days in length.

      Would that be the 27.3 day sidereal Lunar month or the 29.5 day synodic Lunar month that you've got the length wrong for?

      The ratio of the lunar month (either way you measure) to the year is an irrational number that changes as the moon's orbit recedes. Any calendar that makes a real attempt to follow both cycles won't be good for much except driving people nuts.
      • Would somebody mod this post up? I can't understand for the life of me how somebody posting such an obvious troll as the original post could possibly have gotten modded up. Moderators might do with actually following the links in the future to discover when somebody is either trolling or just downright insane.


        That being said, there are potentially legitimate calendars that we ought not to fully ignore that are not the Gregorian. But there are more legitimate ways of pointing that out.

    • Basic science:

      There aren't 13 lunar "months" in a solar year. Indeed there is no resonance between the two at all.

      However from the linked site you seem only tenously acquainted with reality, apparently not enough to ever actually look at a lunar calendar.

      Score: -3 (troll with pseudo-science & bad math!)

  • We need high-profile projects like this and Komodo [activestate.com] to show off the immense power of the Mozilla platform. All you people who whine about how it "needs to just be a browser" need to realise that Mozilla people went out to create a completely cross-platform application framework, using XUL, Gecko and all the other top-notch technologies they have developed. Far from only enabling surface features such as skinning and scriptability, the engine allows for a wide range of programs [dmoz.org] to be written once and then available to all Mozilla users.

    With Java being removed from Windows XP, and AOL poised to start including a Mozilla-based browser in their next version of Internet software, Mozilla could very well become the cross-platform development environment of choice. Keep an eye out for more Mozilla-based projects like this to come.

  • Everybody's seek and tired of waiting for years for you to come up with something that just DOES WEB BROWSING and doesn't eat up all the available memory and doesn't crash every 5 minutes. Mosilla is the biggest open source fiasco ever.
  • Despite deploying and building our systems on UNIX platforms utilizing BSD/GPL systems, we have an NT 4.0 network with Exchange 5.5 running.

    Why?

    We need the coordination ability of Outlook. I haven't seen anything for UNIX that compares. The ability to schedule meetings, observe schedules, and otherwise coordinate things is extremely useful. I would love to replace the Exchange Server and backend infrastructure with Free Solutions, but they aren't there yet.

    I use IE and Mozilla as my browsers (IE 6 is pretty flaky), but I am stuck on a Windows 2000 desktop (albeit with 3-4 SSH sessions going) because of collaboration tools, accounting tools, and office tools.

    This is a step in the right direction for those looking to build Free solutions.

    Alex
    • Funny thing... I was actually talking about this kind of thing on IRC with some friends this morning. Well before I knew about this.

      There really aren't many alternatives to Exchange right now. There's Notes, which is massive bloatware for most people - yes, it does more than just email/scheduling/calendaring, but most companies aren't interested in the "and more!" bit. Notes is pretty platform neutral though. There's also the Netscape/Sun iPlanet, which I'm unimpressed with from what I've seen.

      Until there is a viable alternative to Exchange a lot of companies won't even bother looking at non-MS solutions. Because they're going to need the Exchange servers in place for what they currently use them for. Which means that you're stuck on an MS desktop. And a lot of CEO's and CIO's will question the value of moving servers off Windows as long as you still have to have some Windows servers.

      Yes, these are all issues that can be worked around, but no matter what advocates might think, the reality is that this kind of thought process occurs daily and it's what keeps entrenhed companies entrenched. I know a lot of people will just say "well then they're stupid! Let them suffer for their own stupidity!" but realize that there are FAR more of "them" then there are of "us". You're living in the world of the unwashed masses, not vica versa.

      It's not going to delay 1.0, it's going to bring something vitally needed to the table (eventually). It should be properly segmented out so as to avoid code bloat. This is a Good Thing.

    • We need the coordination ability of Outlook. I haven't seen anything for UNIX that compares.

      Okay, this doesn't completely compare to Outlook (yet), but keep an eye on the Horde Project [horde.org]. We've used IMP [horde.org] as our primary email system at my company for two years now. The horde project provides the framework for a system with integrated e-mail, a calendar, contacts management, and much more. Only a couple of modules are in active development, but the framework is pretty nice.. Should you want to lend a hand it's pretty easy to get involved.

      I'm not affiliated with them in anyway, I just enjoy the fruits of their labor.

      Shayne

    • I hear you! Where I work we develop Unix applications using Unix workstations. We can't give up our Solaris, it's out of the question.

      But times are tight. We had to cut back on our lunches, our perks, our benefits. But some bozo in another division thinks we all need to use Outlook Mail and Calendar instead of Netscape Mail and Calendar. So when we don't even have enough budget to authorize a lunch meeting with a client, we are going to rip out our Netscape servers and replace them with Outlook servers, and give everyone a new Dell/W2K box so sit alongside their Ultrasparcs.

      This is so stupid even the M$ lackeys in IT are up in arms over it.

      Oh well, since IT isn't going to "police" these machines, it's time to repartition.
      • I've been evaluating Mac OS X for a few months. Our applications are primarily web based, though we do Java and are adding Qt to the technology base.

        We had each programmer with a Linux box and Win2K box. Now it is hit or miss. If you need/want a dedicated server, its yours. Otherwise, you use a development server.

        Mac OS X offers some interesting possibilities. One system, with a full BSD subsystem (adequate for us), as well as an Outlook Client and MS Office (coming to native OS X, "Real Soon Now"). When those are released, we're really going to consider Powerbooks instead of the Compaq Armada's with docking stations.

        Giving everyone a full Unix desktop (complete with CVS client) as well as Office Productivity apps would be great.

        VirtualPC would probably even be sufficient for the few Windows only apps that we need. (Test the site on IE/Windows, Quickbooks for my accounting, etc.).

        I realize that if you are doing real Unix coding, you need the Sparcs. But for those of us that just need a Unix-like environment, it is a sufficient development solution.

        Alex
  • If they would just concentrate on the browser engine, the browser engine and... yes the browser engine.

    Why should my web browser start an entire application platform? I just want to view web pages.

    I think the term bloat is very soon to be replaced by 'mozilla'. Their next idea is probably a new desktop envirement... like we need another one (/kde/gnome/windowmaker)

    However this the great about open source. Other can use one good part from one project (gecko) and make other things better and more integrated (galeon).

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Step 1: Build Server
      Step 2: Build clients which work with the server

      Hey you forgot:

      Step 3: Profit!

  • Because they can.

    Nobody is going to force you to use it, or even download it, even if you do choose to use Mozilla as your browser. This component, like the mail/news, and all other components, will be optional.

    while (software == free)
    {
    bitch();
    moan();
    }

  • Palm Conduits (Score:2, Interesting)

    by yaba ( 218529 )
    Very well... One further step away from outlook.


    However this means, that an Palm conduit for pilot-link to synchronize the calendar and the address book of Mozilla would be essential.


    Anyway, an conduit for the Mozilla address book would be great to have now. Does anyone know if there are plans to provide such an conduit?

  • How about a server? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Linux_ho ( 205887 )
    Does anyone know of an open-source calendar SERVER that supports iCal, and actually sorta works? It looks like ReefKnot [reefknot.org] has a ways to go, though it looks promising.
  • Microsoft's rule over our calendar is no more! No longer will we have MSJanuary, WinFebruary, XPMarch, etc.
    And no, Bill Gates was NOT born on Christmas!
    • heh.. Course not. Gates was born on Gatemas the holeyest day of the year.

      Anyone know why they use Windows 3000 as a prison guard? It always locks up -- heh..
  • "Thanks to an extremely generous offer of code from OEone Corporation?" I thought it was morally wrong to not offer code to everyone for free. We wouldn't say "thanks to an extremely generous offer of not stealing" would we?
  • Yet another US-centric calendar.
    I hope it's configureable.
    (I want the week numbers displayed too!)

  • Do people read the articles anymore? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ihatelisp ( 529132 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @01:09PM (#2484284)

    What are all these complaints about bloat and never-will-be-released 1.0?

    • Mozilla is an open project. Any outsider can contribute and develop applications that use the Mozilla platform.
    • It is clearly stated that Calendar will be post-1.0 work. Mozilla.org is not going to hold the 1.0 release for the calendar.
    • Key Mozilla developers will concentrate on the 1.0 release and will not spend much effort on the calendar.
    • If you don't like it, don't compile it into your build. You have the source, after all.

    Free software is about freedom and choice. Stop discouraging side projects just because you don't like it.

  • While I realize I may get flamed to a small charcoal briquette for this, what about importing into this (or any other Open Source product, for that matter) your calendar (or messages) from Outlook?

    In my office, we use both Win products and Linux/Unix. Windows basically owns most of the desktops in here, while *nix is on many of our servers. I use Linux for my workstation, and many of my coworkers are interested in trying it as well. The big stumbling block? Getting their mail into Evolution [ximian.com]/Kmail [kde.org]/Nutscrape/Mozilla as well as all their calendar items.

    Outlook Express can export into a format that Evolution will read, but not if it's working from a .pst file. Has anyone found a way to happilly export mail, contacts, calendar, etc. reliably? So far I've tried all the options Outlook 2000 offers into Evolution, Kmail and Mozilla without success. You can send contacts as V-Cards into Evolution, but that's a long and tiresome task if you have over 300 contacts since Outlook has a nasty habit of only letting send about 10 at a time (at least, I've run into problems sending more... is it possible to do?).

    Projects like OEone or KOrganizer [kde.org] are great, but it's more difficult to get anyone to try them if it means losing all their old/current data.
  • I want my calendar available to me wherever I am - home, work, on the road - using a client-side solution is pointless in this respect. The same goes for mail. A service like Yahoo Calendar is the way to go - have your calendar wherever, on whatever browser. This seems self-evident.

  • Calendaring server is what we need (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BigJim.fr ( 40893 ) <jim@liotier.org> on Friday October 26, 2001 @01:20PM (#2484361) Homepage
    We now have clients a plenty, but no way to share selected parts of our calendar with groups or individuals. A server would be really great and also be a step on the quest for a mSexChange replacement. What are the open standards for calendar sharing ?
    • Forget about open standards for calendar sharing. I want a product that is to exchange what samba is to nt file sharing.

      Not because I actually want that, but because we use a couple of proprietary programs (OSS versions are in development, but are still a year or two off, and we need software now) that link into MS Exchange.

      I'm sure we're not the only ones.

      • Well, I don't want to discourage anyone working on such a project, but Exchange RPC sounds like a ratsnest that's probably not even documented within Microsoft. Work has recently started on building a open source DCE/RPC piece (originally a Unix protocol -- dcerpc.net), and that would need to be completed before Exchange reverse-engineering could start.

        Visions appearing of redfaced Exchange administrators yelling "Your Lin-ux crap crashed my server!!" (What? You assumed the Exchange RPC server is robust?)

        To my knowledge, all data in Exchange can be accessed through IMAP, LDAP, and HTTP (with some possible slight MS twists), and that would seem like the more fruitful approach (although it might not solve your particular problems).

    • Re:Calendaring server is what we need (Score:5, Informative)

      by Linux_ho ( 205887 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @02:32PM (#2484720) Homepage
      RFC 2445 [ietf.org], 2446 [ietf.org], 2447 [ietf.org]

      These documents describe the iCalendar protocol, supported by Outlook and Palm Desktop, if I remember correctly.

      Open source servers:
      ReefKnot [reefknot.org] - still pre-alpha, developing a Perl iCal library and server implementation, looks like it has promise for the future.

      WorldPilot [worldpilot.nl] - a Zope product, looks like it mostly works well, I'm looking forward to playing around with it. Anyone know of any others?
      • Let's not forget Citadel [citadel.org], which when finished will be not only a calendaring server, but e-mail as well -- a full-blown Exchange killer.

        Y'know what the really key piece is, that no one seems to be able to do? The ability to look at one of your peers' free/busy times, and find free slots to schedule events. Exchange does this by publishing, at the user's option, a version of the user's calendar that has the actual appointment data removed - you only see the blocks that are marked "busy" (and the blocks that are marked "tentative".

        Regrettably, the RFC's for calendaring don't contain any standard protocol for doing this. There is an RFC for the data format, and the RFC for sending invites, RSVP's, etc... but we need one more RFC for a calendar access protocol.

        I, for one, am happy to see that Mozilla will be gaining a calendar client. It will allow those of us working on the Citadel project to work with the Mozilla calendar client on all platforms, without having to reverse-engineer Microsoft's protocol.
      • a quick search came up with

        iCal 3.5
        A very dynamic calendar utility that allows you to post dates on your Intra/Internet. November 3rd, 2000 Shareware 1.5MB win32

        http://www.brownbearsw.com/ical/icalpage.html [brownbearsw.com]

        ICal 2.2
        ICal is a popular X-based calendar and scheduler application. September 28th, 1998 256.6K

        http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/pdp/ose/asis/products/TCL/i cal-2.2/ical.html/ [wwwinfo.cern.ch]

        JetSync 1.0
        Synchronizes your email, calendar (ical), memos and addresses and enables conduits for other types of data. February 22nd, 2000 GPL 213.3K
        (I could not find the webpage but palm links to it)

        http://mega.ist.utl.pt/~frias/jetsync/ [ist.utl.pt]

        Syncal 0.5
        Syncal reads a current ical calendar file, an archived ical calendar file, and a Palm(TM) device DateBook database. April 12th, 1999 GPL 26.1K

        http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/syncal/ [nwu.edu]

        lib ICAL 0.23
        Lib ICAL is an open source implementation of the IETF's iCAL Calendaring and Scheduling protocols. March 28th, 2001 MPL 567.9K

        http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/syncal/ [nwu.edu]

        yes I think that there is a lack of servers you can build yourself

        companys often want to run servers on their intranet and dont want to far it out to a outside source (palm sells alot of their enterprise servers which do syncing)

        personally the only app that runs this well and gets messaging right has been Lotus Notes Domino

        frankly it rocks and I am surprised that Ximian have not picked up on this they have a client but no server and the server is where the money is !!

        regards

        john jones
      • I wonder if Lotus Domino (the server backend to Lotus Notes) could be tricked into supporting these RFCs? or at least if we could create a bridge layer for those of us at companies that use Domino....
  • After years of licensing expensive, bug-ridden, proprietary calendars, I can finally move to an open-source calendar.

    Just in time, as I was sick of MicrosoftMonday(tm) also starting late. Further, their new licensing requires me to upgrade to MS2002 by Jan 1, 2002 at the latest.

    Now, I can upgrade when I feel like it (I won't need 2002 until sometime late 2005). And since I'll have the source, I can add an extra hour to all my days, an extra day to all my months, and find a work-around to my birthday (so it only happens once every 3 years).

    Open Source Rules!
    :)
  • Will that, like, have nude pinups of RMS and ESR?

    Yum! I want one for my wall!

    -Kasreyn

    P.S. YES, THAT WAS A JOKE, YOU SICK FREAKS.
  • Gotta use my iDisk for something! Should be nice and zippy.

    calendar.jpg [mac.com]
    calendar_add_event.jpg [mac.com]
    calendar_day_view.jpg [mac.com]
    calendar_week_view.jpg [mac.com]
    wordp.jpg [mac.com]
  • I love my Moz, but know unfortunate juxtapositions when I see them...
  • Slashdot: Mozilla.org announced that they'll be putting a calendar app in Mozilla!

    Readers: Yay! Go open-source! We like calendars in web browsers!

    .....

    Slashdot: Microsoft has announced they'll be putting a calendar app in Internet Explorer!

    Readers: Boo! Fuck Microsoft, fuck them up their stupid asses! Browsers shouldn't have calendars! Browsers should browse! If everything was open-source, this wouldn't have happened!

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