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Is there any stated reason for deprecating CalDAV support? I hope the new Calendar API is open enough for platforms like Blackberry, Ubuntu Mobile, Jolla and Fi

Is there any stated reason for deprecating CalDAV support? I hope the new Calendar API is open enough for platforms like Blackberry, Ubuntu Mobile, Jolla and Firefox OS etc to tap into. It's increasingly looking like Google is making it hard for other platforms except it's own Android and iOS(can't ignore iOS because of the number of users) to interoperate with its services like Youtube, Gmail, Calendar etc.

guelo 14y ago
They're going down the Facebook route, they want to lock you into their AOL-style walled garden. I was surprised the other day when I went to share a video from Google+ to Facebook, turns out I couldn't, it wasn't a youtube video as I had expected.
- niggler 14y ago
  Was that Google+'s fault for not giving an easily-embeddable link or Facebook's fault for refusing to show the goods?
  - guelo 14y ago
    Google+'s, it didn't provide the video's link.
  - workbench 14y ago
    I don't see why Facebook would have a problem with you taking content out of G+
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Just like PG said in one of his essays, Google is now the new Microsoft. It used to be about giving hackers tools to build on top of their services. Now, its all about turning the search engine into a social network. And before the Google army comes in, let me say one thing. I used to love Google. Used all of their services. Built stuff with their services. Each computer I touched got Chrome installed. I was a fan boy. But then they started changing. Ever since G+, they just seem hell bent on becoming a social network. That shit really pissed me off. How do you simply go from awesome company to this? I'll tell you how. Because its now being run by people who put profits first, and not the users/programmers. They seem to have forgotten that it was us who gives them the profits they get. Such is the reason I'm building Nuuton. Because fuck you Google.
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    As someone often accused of being a Google "fanboi"... I agree. I'm not going to abandon Go or Chrome or anything because they are fully OSS so if Google drops them it isn't the end of the world, but I wouldn't dream of building a service (even a free for-fun one) on top of some Google Web API these days. Maybe that's fine with them (seems like they have a corporate mission to eliminate the whole idea of free or nearly-free web APIs anyway), but regardless of their motivations they've proven to be a non-reliable provider of stable free-to-use web APIs over the past couple of years.
    - orangethirty 14y ago
      Yeah, that's the crazy aspect to this. I really like Go, Chrome, and a lot of the other things they offer. But to quote a character named Mr. Lahey from from the tv show "Trailer Park Boys": "Its all a shit-storm now." You can't built bridges on top of shaky ground.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
    - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
      Chrome isn't OSS. You're thinking of Chromium.
      - gcp 14y ago
        Chromium for Android is a joke. It doesn't even have tabs and has nothing in common with Chrome. I wonder what they need to hide. Google is clearly not an open source company.
        flyinRyan 14y ago
        When was Google ever an open source company? Search, Gmail, Buzz, G+, .... what is it they do do open source?
  - 14y ago
a3_nm 14y ago
Even if the Calendar API were open to all platforms, it's not a standard, it's just an API unilaterally defined by Google. CalDAV, however, is a standard <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791>. It is certainly an evil move from Google to try to replace an existing open standard with an API defined exclusively by them (unless they have technical grounds to do so, and considerate and documented extensions to the existing standard are not a viable approach).
- wmeredith 14y ago
  Yeah, CalDAV != Calendar API. I've always had nightmares hooking anything to it reliably over time. I finally just gave up and use Googles stuff to access it (after years).
- egor83 14y ago
  To make things worse, Google's support for their own APIs is pretty weak - I had some bad experiences with them. Calendar API wasn't the worst - okay, I didn't get any response from Google guys on a bug I ran into, but they eventually fixed it (and lack of user support is pretty much a norm for them now). The situation with Spreadsheets is way worse - the API is pretty much abandoned, no changes or any reaction to bugs/complaints for a few months now. They'd roll out a new API version, remove the old documentation (instead of marking it as deprecated but accessible), but the new documentation is really lacking - only has examples in C#, and even these are incomplete. So, yeah, moving from open standards to their own API is very bad - not just because it's locking up people or something, but also because they are not supporting _their own APIs_ properly.
  - kybernetikos 14y ago
    Also, the last time I used the Spreadsheet API, it didn't respond correctly to the OPTIONS request, making CORS pretty much useless.
- Acen 14y ago
  Perhaps Google should be reminded of their own Code of Conduct. http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html
Osiris 14y ago
For my day job I work on a Calendar application. We provide a CalDav service for customers to access their Calendar data. While it can get tricky to support all the variations, it's a solid standard that makes integration really easy. One problem we have is that Android doesn't natively support CalDav, so we can't integrate with the built-in Android calendar like we can with iOS's calendar. For those that work with calendars, CalDav is a well documented standard for sharing calendar data. It robustly handles all the use cases that we've been able to think of (including edge cases). It's disappointing to hear that Google will discontinue the service. I'm sure lots of iOS and Mac users use the CalDav sync to natively sync their Google Calendar to their devices. How will users of native apps be able to get their calendar now?
- kalleboo 14y ago
  Exchange ActiveSync Edit: I forgot they're turning off ActiveSync for free users later this year
  - Aco- 14y ago
    This is massively bad news if both CalDAV & EAS support will be ixnayed by google before end of year. I have been a long time android user and had every intention of continuing down that path, but recently my job has required me to use Exchange ActiveSync to access my corporate mail & calendar data on my device, its a bit of a hassle but at least it's supported. Does this mean that future versions of android will not have support for such a (common business related) setup? If this is true I foresee it alienating a large portion of their user base.
MrScruff 14y ago
CalDAV was the approved method for syncing Google calendars on iOS since they ended activesync support on new devices a month ago. I'm not sure what the plan is now. Hopefully Apple will be in the approved third party list for extended CalDAV support.

guelo 14y ago

They're going down the Facebook route, they want to lock you into their AOL-style walled garden. I was surprised the other day when I went to share a video from Google+ to Facebook, turns out I couldn't, it wasn't a youtube video as I had expected.

niggler 14y ago
Was that Google+'s fault for not giving an easily-embeddable link or Facebook's fault for refusing to show the goods?
- guelo 14y ago
  Google+'s, it didn't provide the video's link.
- workbench 14y ago
  I don't see why Facebook would have a problem with you taking content out of G+
orangethirty 14y ago
Just like PG said in one of his essays, Google is now the new Microsoft. It used to be about giving hackers tools to build on top of their services. Now, its all about turning the search engine into a social network. And before the Google army comes in, let me say one thing. I used to love Google. Used all of their services. Built stuff with their services. Each computer I touched got Chrome installed. I was a fan boy. But then they started changing. Ever since G+, they just seem hell bent on becoming a social network. That shit really pissed me off. How do you simply go from awesome company to this? I'll tell you how. Because its now being run by people who put profits first, and not the users/programmers. They seem to have forgotten that it was us who gives them the profits they get. Such is the reason I'm building Nuuton. Because fuck you Google.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  As someone often accused of being a Google "fanboi"... I agree. I'm not going to abandon Go or Chrome or anything because they are fully OSS so if Google drops them it isn't the end of the world, but I wouldn't dream of building a service (even a free for-fun one) on top of some Google Web API these days. Maybe that's fine with them (seems like they have a corporate mission to eliminate the whole idea of free or nearly-free web APIs anyway), but regardless of their motivations they've proven to be a non-reliable provider of stable free-to-use web APIs over the past couple of years.
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    Yeah, that's the crazy aspect to this. I really like Go, Chrome, and a lot of the other things they offer. But to quote a character named Mr. Lahey from from the tv show "Trailer Park Boys": "Its all a shit-storm now." You can't built bridges on top of shaky ground.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    Chrome isn't OSS. You're thinking of Chromium.
    - gcp 14y ago
      Chromium for Android is a joke. It doesn't even have tabs and has nothing in common with Chrome. I wonder what they need to hide. Google is clearly not an open source company.
      - flyinRyan 14y ago
        When was Google ever an open source company? Search, Gmail, Buzz, G+, .... what is it they do do open source?
- 14y ago

a3_nm 14y ago

Even if the Calendar API were open to all platforms, it's not a standard, it's just an API unilaterally defined by Google. CalDAV, however, is a standard <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4791>. It is certainly an evil move from Google to try to replace an existing open standard with an API defined exclusively by them (unless they have technical grounds to do so, and considerate and documented extensions to the existing standard are not a viable approach).

wmeredith 14y ago
Yeah, CalDAV != Calendar API. I've always had nightmares hooking anything to it reliably over time. I finally just gave up and use Googles stuff to access it (after years).
egor83 14y ago
To make things worse, Google's support for their own APIs is pretty weak - I had some bad experiences with them. Calendar API wasn't the worst - okay, I didn't get any response from Google guys on a bug I ran into, but they eventually fixed it (and lack of user support is pretty much a norm for them now). The situation with Spreadsheets is way worse - the API is pretty much abandoned, no changes or any reaction to bugs/complaints for a few months now. They'd roll out a new API version, remove the old documentation (instead of marking it as deprecated but accessible), but the new documentation is really lacking - only has examples in C#, and even these are incomplete. So, yeah, moving from open standards to their own API is very bad - not just because it's locking up people or something, but also because they are not supporting _their own APIs_ properly.
- kybernetikos 14y ago
  Also, the last time I used the Spreadsheet API, it didn't respond correctly to the OPTIONS request, making CORS pretty much useless.
Acen 14y ago
Perhaps Google should be reminded of their own Code of Conduct. http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html

Osiris 14y ago

For my day job I work on a Calendar application. We provide a CalDav service for customers to access their Calendar data. While it can get tricky to support all the variations, it's a solid standard that makes integration really easy. One problem we have is that Android doesn't natively support CalDav, so we can't integrate with the built-in Android calendar like we can with iOS's calendar. For those that work with calendars, CalDav is a well documented standard for sharing calendar data. It robustly handles all the use cases that we've been able to think of (including edge cases). It's disappointing to hear that Google will discontinue the service. I'm sure lots of iOS and Mac users use the CalDav sync to natively sync their Google Calendar to their devices. How will users of native apps be able to get their calendar now?

kalleboo 14y ago
Exchange ActiveSync Edit: I forgot they're turning off ActiveSync for free users later this year
- Aco- 14y ago
  This is massively bad news if both CalDAV & EAS support will be ixnayed by google before end of year. I have been a long time android user and had every intention of continuing down that path, but recently my job has required me to use Exchange ActiveSync to access my corporate mail & calendar data on my device, its a bit of a hassle but at least it's supported. Does this mean that future versions of android will not have support for such a (common business related) setup? If this is true I foresee it alienating a large portion of their user base.

MrScruff 14y ago

CalDAV was the approved method for syncing Google calendars on iOS since they ended activesync support on new devices a month ago. I'm not sure what the plan is now. Hopefully Apple will be in the approved third party list for extended CalDAV support.