Observations from CalConnect XXIX in San Francisco

Posted February 27, 2014

CalConnect held its twenty-ninth interoperability test event and Roundtable Technical Conference the week of February 3-7 in San Francisco, California. The event was hosted by CalConnect founding member Mozilla, which did a great job with not only the event logistics, but also making everyone feel very welcome, which was reflected in the very strong attendance at these events.

36 people, representing 21 CalConnect member organizations and one observer, participated during the week. Almost a quarter of the attendees traveled internationally to come to CalConnect XXIX, from the Czech Republic, England, France, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand and Switzerland. Attendance at CalConnect events is growing, international membership and participation are bringing new energy and perspectives to CalConnect.

We have just published the first architectural diagrams for Tasks from TC TASKS and for Calendaring and Scheduling from TC API.

Here’s what’s trending from CalConnect XXIX:

Trending Membership

Six of the seven new “Emergent Vendor” members (a new membership category for small vendors and startups) were represented at CalConnect XXIX, including milton.io, our newest member.

Trending Technical Committees (TC s) and Provisional Committees (PC s)

  • TC PUSH

    (PUSH protocol for CalDAV and CardDAV)

  • TC ISCHEDULE

    (intersystem iTIP scheduling via HTTP)

  • TC TASKS

    (VTODO extensions for new scheduling areas such as logistics, project and energy management)

  • TC API

    (Abstract API for Calendaring and Scheduling) was established from the provisional committee of the same name

  • TC FREEBUSY

    Demo-ed a prototype web client supporting

    VPOLL

  • A Contacts Sharing Provisional Committee was established to look at developing a single standard for Contacts Sharing

Trending Interoperability testing

The interoperability testing was very successful, with 23 participants from 13 organizations. The CalDAV Test Suite is rapidly being evolved into a really useful general testing tool for CalDAV servers. A more detailed accounting of the interoperability testing will be available at CalConnect Interoperability Test Event Reports.

Trending Documents/Standards

Much of the work in CalConnect is focused on specifications to become internet draft submissions to the IETF and ultimately be progressed to become RFCs (Proposed Standards), rather than be directly published by CalConnect itself.

Recently published CalConnect documents:

Recently updated internet drafts and published RFCs:

Trending Organizationally

To facilitate broader understanding, CalConnect has retired the name “Roundtable” as used for its thrice-yearly conference and members meeting and will use the term “CalConnect Conference” or “Conference” going forward. The term “Ad Hoc” to describe a short-term exploratory committee has been retired, and will be replaced by “Provisional Committee”.

Wrapping it all together

CalConnect wishes to again thank Mozilla for helping to make CalConnect XXIX such a productive and enjoyable week.

At our next event, CalConnect XXX, to be hosted by AOL in Dulles, Virginia in May, we are planning to hold a public workshop on the Medical Appointment Scheduling System Contest sponsored by the Veterans Administration, with participation from the VA and from the winning team in the contest. We expect this will be a half-day workshop available to the public (by registration) and will be publishing more information as it becomes available.