One of the sessions I attended at OSCon was about the upcoming CalDAV standard. As calendaring is a weak spot in the Linux/Free Software application space, advances here are particularly welcome.

There was a panel of implementers there, representing:

• Novell / Hula
• Mozilla Foundation / Sunbird and Lightning
• RPI / UW Calendar server
• OSAF / Cosmo and Scoobie and Chandler

(organization) / (programs)

A lot of the session talked about features of their various products, but I’ll ignore those in favor of looking at the protocol.
CalDAV in a nutshell is WebDAV holding iCalendar files and extended to handle calendar-type queries (“when is Joe Blow free?”). The idea is the basic common protocol one: An open spec will let all these products interoperate, so you can use the calendar app which is your favorite without having to bother with which calendar system is at the other end. (Do you know what software your email server is running?)

The IETF tried to standardize calendaring before, with its CAP (“Calendar Access Protocol”), but no one implemented it. Starting from WebDAV means implementers have less work to do, and hey!, it’s working.

Stuff like room / multiparty scheduling is not addressed, they’re leaving that for a later protocol. “Clearly more research is needed.” Conflicting schedule changes are detected using ETags; resolution is unspecified and left to the clients to decide.

If you’re doing any calendaring, you absolutely want to take a look at it. You’re already supporting iCalendar (right?), and there are WebDAV implementations out there you can use (though alas not particularly cleanly), and from there to CalDAV isn’t a big step for an implementer but is a giant leap for interoperability.

The airhook and liboop sites are now at http://airhook.ofb.net and http://liboop.ofb.net.
They used to be under .org, but when they expired (and they were set to auto-renew), Dotster transfered them to “DSTR Holdings”. Dotster didn’t update the whois, which still shows Dan Egnor as the domains’ owner, but otherwise are not recognizing his claim to them.

The old airhook site is now a generic parked domain page, with Google Adsense for Domains links. The old liboop is a copy of the old liboop grabbed from archive.org, with some Playboy links thrown in.

Want to register your domains with a company which is using a subsidiary to jack your domains as they expire? I didn’t think so.

[link redacted] – This is the best site that you will ever find with all the best online Forex news, the lates quotes, and the highest currencies

I feel so special. It’s a real grown up blog now. Not.

Which Aliens Colonial Marine are you?

I’m “Pvt. Vasquez”.

> Spunky token ethnic type.

Ummm…

> Kicked alien butt and didn’t take any crop off of no one.

Yeah!

> Dies in the end.

Well, don’t we all?

So, how did this come about? Well, a Google recruiter found my online resume, thought “hey interesting”, then while checking on me found out that I’d already been working here for a year and a half. Thus I figured it was time to update my web page again. And hey, why not try this blogging thing?

So, after some minor trials and tribulations, I have WordPress set up. Some notes:

• PHP and MySQL don’t get along well. Some key info is at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/old-client.html
• PHP abandons the concept of “users” with different privileges, so there’s no security between one part of “the PHP system” and another part. I don’t like this when one of those parts has a MySQL password in it. So I’m going to work on wrapping this PHP in a CGI.
• I’m going to have to make my own theme, or else this blog will be quickly abandoned on aesthetic grounds.

Welcome to Word​press. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!