269364 - Implement CAP (Calendar Access Protocol) support [extension fodder]

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Calendar :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Steve Wardell]

CAP is in IETF draft format for a calendaring protocol. The server side seems to
be implemented by Novell GroupWise and possibly others. It seems to allow for
well defined calendar server commands and interaction. Support of this would
likely allow real time calendaring server interaction.

Comment 1

[Richard Klein]

Should maybe consider implementing <a href="RFC3283">caldav</a> support first.

Comment 2

[Richard Klein]

My link didn't work.  Here is the draft: 
http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-dusseault-caldav/

Comment 3

[Steve Wardell]

I read over the CalDAV spec and it looks interesting. It basically is a
formalization of some simple WebDAV requirements for WebDAV calendar
interaction. While implementation of support for CalDAV would be simpler and if
it's going to be widely supported, then probably make sense to implement.
However, a much greater benefit would seem to be achieved from CAP
implementation as that is for a full calendar service implementation which
brings greater server intelligence to event handling though is it a larger effort. 

CalDAV would be good to supplement our existing support as the effort is
probably small if CAP support will be a long time down the road. So feel free to
create a bug on CalDAV and mention the id in here as with the limited resources
that might make more sense for the moment.

Comment 4

[Justin Wood (:Callek)]

So you know there are no current plans (afaik) to finalize the CAP protocol,
Though there are plans to finalize CalDAV, so I personally would prefer
implementing CalDAV, even though I personally like the design of CAP much better.

Comment 5

[Steve Wardell]

Sadly I think you're correct. From the last IETF meeting in August (currently
one's going on now in DC) http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/04aug/104.htm:

Ted led a discussion of the status of the CAP spec. He asked whether the WG was
intending to move it forward as a Proposed Standard. As a way to assess that, he
asked how many people have looked closely enough at the spec to assess the
implementability and usefulness of the protocol? There was only one strong
response from the room, and one or two from the text conference. Ted said there
does not seem to be enough interest to give the spec the attention it needs to
be finished. A poll was taken to find out who in the room could spend
significant time; only three said they could.


There followed discussion of the whether CAP's advancement depends on iCal
revisions, the problems of lack of standardization, whether CAP meets current
needs, etc.
---
So it seems even thou it's largely done and implemented by some vendors (Novell
Groupwise is one), it seems there's not resources to finish it. CalDAV is
nearing finanlization and submission to OASIS so it would seem that is the
better approach for now. CalDAV issue is bug 269476 for reference.

Comment 6

[Steve Wardell]

Correction, ignore the part about OASIS.

Comment 7

[gekacheka]

Updated URL:

old: http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-calsch-cap-13.txt
     http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/draft-ietf-calsch-cap/
new: http://ietfreport.isoc.org/idref/rfc4324/
RFC4324 status is experimental

Comment 8

[Matthew (lilmatt) Willis]

Reassigning all automatically assigned bugs from Mostafa to nobody@m.o

Bugspam filter: TorontoMostafaMove

Comment 9

[Philipp Kewisch [:Fallen][📱📆]]

We now support Sun WCAP and caldav. I haven't heard many servers that support any other CAP variants. I'm closing this bug for now (as [extension fodder]), since its likely this should better be implemented in an extension.