Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV

http://www.zdnet.com/google-do-what-you-want-with-reader-but-dont-kill-caldav-7000012628/

by CrankyBear • 13 years ago

255 127 13 years ago

nlawalker• 13 years ago

The MSFT change in position on supporting CalDAV (and the linked Win8 help page) is news to me. My Windows Phone 8 is still syncing with Gmail calendar. Does anyone know what's really going on here?

r0ll3rb0t• 13 years ago

I wish I knew, but this seems to be getting out of hand today. What happened to Google supporting open standards?

spiralpolitik• 13 years ago

Google only supports open standards when it is convenient for them to do so. Now its no longer convenient for them to support CalDav out goes the open standard.

I'm sure IMAP support in Gmail will be next on the chopping block.

air• 13 years ago

Google is still supporting ActiveSync: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/gmail-...

pstatho• 13 years ago

Google is extending EAS for another 6 months and msft announced they will support CalDAV and CardDAV, though this may now change: http://blogs.windows.com/windows_phone/b/windowsphone/archiv...

notatoad• 13 years ago

CalDAV is the spring cleaning killing that I'm most surprised about. It should have been obvious to everybody that reader was on track to be killed, but I would have thought that google would be eager to support any product that involves you telling them what your schedule is, whether that's through their calendar app or any other calendaring app you've got connected to their backend.

Selfcommit2• 13 years ago

If you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach.

Personally, I'm not effected at all between using the Google calendar website and my android based phone. I think Google's goal is to push everyone to use the API for their calander in future apps. I don't mind doing that for what they provide.

I could easily imagine that use of their API could allow for better data gathering than using the open standard.

sangnoir• 13 years ago

Microsoft recently filed an amicus brief supporting Oracle's position on API copyright. I wouldn't speculate that this is the motive, but it would be interesting if Microsoft is pressured into using Google APIs

cube13• 13 years ago

> If you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach.

Except caldav is just a protocol. It's not an API. Google could have made an API that supports the caldav protocol, but chose not to.

This also effects me a lot, personally, because I have a Kindle Fire and an iPhone, and I use my Google calendar to sync up everything between the two.

wooster• 13 years ago

Can anyone recommend a good email/calendar host for custom domains?

Edit: I have several Google Apps for Business domains. I'm looking for alternatives.

38252• 13 years ago

Exchange server is $10 per month at Rackspace [1] I've heard good things about Microsoft Office 365 as well. Then, there's always Google Apps for Business...

[1] https://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/exchange_hostin...

eknkc• 13 years ago

Been using Office 365 for a year now. Never had any problems. I'd suggest it over GApps for business if you are looking for a paid service.

josephlord• 13 years ago

I'm looking at eumx.net at the moment. Fastmail.fm and Polaris were other possibilities.

rdl• 13 years ago

I use Kerio (which is available either hosted or you can do what I do and self host). I'm technically a reseller, although I've never sold their hosted product. I think pricing is lower than Google Apps for Business, but who cares within a factor of 2 or so?

It's exchange/activesync. Works great.

bschlinker• 13 years ago

"Google's CalDAV page already lists the API as being "deprecated." A note on the page adds "If you think you have a compelling use case and would like to be whitelisted for the new version of CalDAV API, please fill out this form."

...

Google, however, confirmed this will not impact the agreement with Microsoft and that the Softies will still be able to implement CalDav support on Windows Phone."

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-in-the-clear-to-add-google-ca...

spinchange4• 13 years ago

That article, and many of the others linked from within show that it is very unclear what's going on exactly. It would appear that Microsoft is only planning on implementing CalDAV in Windows Phone but has, as of yet, not confirmed it.

It does appear that they have confirmed not supporting CalDAV on Windows 8, RT, or Outlook. And since Google is phasing out support for ActiveSync come 7/31/2013, the only way to sync with Google calendars and contacts is from Outlook 2010 and earlier, and only if you are a paid apps user. (using ActiveSync)

vxNsr2• 13 years ago

I would reply that at least the windows issues will be solved with Blue coming to screens near you this spring or early summer.

cooldeal2• 13 years ago

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.

guelo3• 13 years 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.

niggler4• 13 years ago

Was that Google+'s fault for not giving an easily-embeddable link or Facebook's fault for refusing to show the goods?

orangethirty2• 13 years 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.

a3_nm• 13 years 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>. 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

Acen• 13 years ago

Perhaps Google should be reminded of their own Code of Conduct. http://investor.google.com/corporate/code-of-conduct.html

Osiris2• 13 years ago

Also see the iCalendar specification for common data transfer format[1]. I have to refer to these documents on a pretty regular basis for my job.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2445

Osiris2• 13 years 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?

kalleboo2• 13 years ago

Exchange ActiveSync

Edit: I forgot they're turning off ActiveSync for free users later this year

MrScruff2• 13 years 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.

john61• 13 years ago

Very suited for the next week upcoming Document Freedom Day: https://www.documentfreedom.org/

Google is risking their credit in supported open standards.

guelo3• 13 years ago

I'm getting really nervous about relying so much on Google. I'll be working on transitioning off of them from here on out for all my projects and recommendations. I just learned about the Leaflet map library for example.

pkfrank• 13 years ago

I recently caught myself thinking: "How much would someone have to pay me to never use another Google product?" While contemplating my use of gMail, Search, Calendar, YouTube, etc., I wrapped my head around how powerful and irreplaceable Google and its products are to me. Now that they're winding down Reader, I'm reminded at how vulnerable we all are given this reliance.

gwern2• 13 years ago

I've actually been putting numbers on this: there are many fans of NewsBlur, apparently, as a replacement for Google Reader, so that's $12 a year; I'm worried about being tied to my Gmail address, so I finally got around to setting up a vanity domain address which forwards to Gmail and that's going to be about $10 a year. So I'm up to $22 a year, and I haven't looked into any free or paid replacements for Google Calendar or Analytics...

psbp2• 13 years ago

Wouldn't you just be reliant another another company? What's to guarantee that they won't close down the service one day?

thedragon44533• 13 years ago

Well, that depends. I had the same reaction, and my thought was to basically go the opensource route, but some products almost have to be replaced with a company. Products I use from Google:

* Search - replace with duck duck go * Chrome - Firefox, most likely, but there are tons of browser options these days. * Voice - this is the one that really has me hooked into the service. Not sure what I'd use instead, if not just a regular phone number. * reader - now built into owncloud, dozens of reader replacements popping up. * youtube - probably won't replace. I usually don't log in any way. Uploads that I do occasionally post will go to vimeo. * gmail - aside from the hassle of switching, rolling an email server isn't too hard. downtime is a concern, but I could mitigate this by hosting it in the cloud somewhere, or even doing a colo backup at a friend's house. Paying for email is an option, I suppose, which could have benefits.

Other than that, I'm not sure. These moves by Google recently just seem skeevy to me. I think it started with the G+ stuff, but since then my trust in Google is waning, so this is a thing I think about somewhat regularly now.

nemothekid• 13 years ago

With all the reader noise I missed CalDAV would be killed. I just checked Apple Calendar and realized that its set up to sync with my Google Calendar with CalDAV?

Does anyone know if Apple is one of those whitelisted developers?

glasshead969• 13 years ago

I hope they are, but there is no information on who is going to be whitelisted.

rythie• 13 years ago

Surely this breaks calendar syncing with iOS http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&a... please tell me I'm very wrong about this?

cobbal• 13 years ago

Pure speculation, but I would assume Apple will be a "whitelisted developer".

philwebster• 13 years ago

Based on Google's previous app releases (YouTube, Gmail, Maps, ...) I wouldn't be surprised to see a native Google Calendar app instead.

kalleboo2• 13 years ago

My iPhone syncs to Google Calendar through Exchange/ActiveSync, I imagine that will still be an option.

Edit: I forgot they're turning off ActiveSync for free users later this year

robertskmiles• 13 years ago

I think Aaron Swartz hit the nail on the head with his "What Does Google Mean by “Evil”?" blog post[1]:

> "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results. Hardly the stuff of comic books. But what do these three have in common? They’re all instances of refusing to make things worse for your users in order to make more money"

This is just about the first time I've seen Google unambiguously break their own definition of 'evil'.

[1] http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googevil

Edit: On reflection... not the first time.

niggler4• 13 years ago

You mean Google broke aaronsw's guess at google's understanding of evil.

Evil is a relative term, and if Microsoft is seen as the Evil empire then cutting off amicable relations (manifested by open interfaces) can be construed as "not evil"

Read the update to the article, where he points out that the entire concept of ads could be construed as evil by some.

freshhawk• 13 years ago

aaronsw was quoting google sources, not guessing.

r00fus• 13 years ago

There is a continuum of evil - on one end, you have ruthless bloodthirsty organizations who don't balk at breaking all the rules to make a dollar or point, on the other end you have "mostly self-consistent" organizations like FSF and EFF.

Microsoft isn't pure evil, they're were just seen as being closer to the bloodthirsty end than Apple or Google. It used to be that Google was seen as closer to the FSF side than, say, Microsoft.

Nowadays, it's pretty clear all of these big tech firms are not far apart and moving more towards the ruthless side of the spectrum.

psbp2• 13 years ago

So is Google forbidden from ever closing down a service without being accused of being evil?

kirushik• 13 years ago

More specifically, Google is forbidden to replace IETF-approved and wide-acknowledged API with its own proprietary substitute without being accused of being evil.

Seems to be fair enough for me, just in case anyone cares.

cooldeal2• 13 years ago

Not really, but in this case, they have failed to give any justification for not following a standard that industry giants like Apple follow and which Microsoft is close to implementing on Windows Phone. Perhaps there is a technical reason, but Google not being open about it makes people assume the worst.

recoiledsnake• 13 years ago

> "They specifically name three: showing irrelevant ads, using pop-ups or other annoying gimmicks, and selling off actual search results.

I think omitting a border around ads and intentionally reducing the contrast from the background to make it invisible to older people and people with bad monitors does count as an annoying gimmick and a user-hostile anti-pattern. The A/B testing would've shown a lot of ad clicks and increase in profit from people who mistake them for organic search results.

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional...

http://i.imgur.com/Wmdd0.png

And also, didn't Google change its shopping results to be paid search results?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/05/31/how-evi...

I would think the beancounters are rapidly taking over.

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

The important part is where it specifically says Ads, and then a link to why these ads? though. Contrast should be high enough you can see why ads end, but other than where it's been cropped in the picture you posted, it's still very clear that at least the top result is an advert. You are right that contrast should clearly distinguish ads from not, but you shouldn't crop out the label clearly identifying it as an advert to prove your point.

In addition to that, I'd argue looking at your picture that it really doesn't matter if it's an ad or not - if it were an organic result and you didn't want to file a lawsuit, you wouldn't click it anyway.

Karunamon2• 13 years ago

>This is just about the first time I've seen Google unambiguously break their own definition of 'evil'.

Shutting down a service is now considered "evil"? That's a stretch if there ever was one...

onemorepassword3• 13 years ago

Replacing an open standard with your own proprietary crap once you have achieved dominance (anybody here not using Google Calendar?) in the market?

That's 90's Microsoft-level "evil".

duaneb• 13 years ago

Well this is disappointing, to say the least. At least replace it with a better open standard, or I won't use google calendar, which is probably my favorite google product after gmail.

ladzoppelin• 13 years ago

The real problem for Google is that Microsoft has better products than Gmail and Google Calender. I am completely fine switching to Outlook web mail services and actually want to move after the way they are handling the active sync situation, the redesign and the closing of services. Once I switch, I would still log in for Google Reader but that ends in July. Google is king of search but the game its playing with these other products are dangerous considering the competition.

adrinavarro• 13 years ago

Sadly, Microsoft Outlook Web Access isn't an option — if you're looking for self hosted services, which you should, having seen what's happening now. The webmail interface is just ugly and hard to use when handling lots of emails each day (as most people here do, I presume).

As soon as I find something with a decent calendar system (web, CalDav, time zone support, decent interface and subscribing to iCalendar feeds) as well as decent email (useful interface, good filtering, acceptable spam filtering), and hopefully, XMPP support baked in, I'm jumping ship. This is starting to get ugly.

jcurbo2• 13 years ago

I moved off of Google Calendar and Google Reader (and have never used GMail) for exactly these reasons several months ago. I do not want to be dependent on free services or ones that might go away. I know this could be true for any company - but at least for ones I am paying for I have support agreements.

pyre• 13 years ago

Care to mention whom you moved to for Calendar / Reader?

jcurbo2• 13 years ago

Sure.

Reader - Self-hosted Fever, although currently evaluating Tiny Tiny RSS. Checked out Newsblur a while back but felt like the interface was too busy/animated (same reason I left Reader). TTRSS feels a lot like Bloglines of old (which I loved but seemed to die on the vine)

Calendar - Bouncing between my email host's solution (pobox.com has a caldav/carddav server now) and iCloud, but considering setting up my own caldav/carddav server.

koenigdavidmj• 13 years ago

Seems like a proxy layer that speaks CalDAV on one end and Google Calendar API on the other might be handy. Any idea of how much the latter API has that would be difficult to translate?

ratpad• 13 years ago

You shut up about Google Reader!

mcintyre19942• 13 years ago

I think this news highlights a more general problem. How can we call something an "open standard" if it's controlled by one company in such a way that they can shut it down at whim. Open sourcing should be a requirement to be an "open standard", or am I missing something?

ville• 13 years ago

They are not shutting down the standard, they are dropping the support for it in services they host.

Nux• 13 years ago

People: do what you want, just start running your own shit instead of playing the google roulette.

onemorepassword3• 13 years ago

I'm pretty much done with Google as supplier of business apps. I have to migrate our company's Google Apps account anyway because of a (domain)name change (which is still hell with Google Apps anyway, you basically have to buy and setup a totally new account an migrate everything by hand or with 3rd party tools), so I might as well look for another supplier.

As much as I dislike everything Microsoft, 365 currently looks well ahead of Google (everything they haven't killed yet has definitely stopped evolving), and has certainly proven to be a more reliable partner for business use.

chapel• 13 years ago

You can add alternate domains to Google Apps accounts which can work just as the main domain. So you don't have to migrate anything, it is the same account just acknowledges and accepts the alternate domain.

vacri• 13 years ago

You can alias the main domain, or you can add a new separate domain with its own settings, both of which we use on the one account.

onemorepassword3• 13 years ago

No they don't. This is the reason why this is such a hell. Yes, the account acknowledges the alternate name, but Google keeps publicly replacing it with the primary name as soon as you do anything.

This is not just ugly and confusing from a marketing and branding perspective, it leads to all kinds of complications with software that reacts to email-addresses, or services that are coupled to Google Apps.

OGinparadise2• 13 years ago

You can add alternate domains to Google Apps accounts which can work just as the main domain.

Until they decide--all of the sudden--that you can't any more (assuming you can now). His point is that Google is unreliable as a long term partner and should not be counted on.

olegp• 13 years ago

Why jump out of the frying pan into the fire? At StartHQ (https://starthq.com) we are trying to build a directory of high quality business web apps from smaller companies such as the ones run by many of us here. Perhaps there's something there that fits your requirements?

chmars• 13 years ago

Does Microsoft offer a convenient migration path from Google Apps for Business to Office 365?

I have not found anything on such a migration path so far, only more or less desperate forum posts …

Google Apps also have the advantage that you can mix free and paid accounts. We have for example some employees who share their business calendars (paid accounts) with their family members (free accounts).

akx• 13 years ago

FYI: You'll have to do the same new account + migration thing with O365 if you wish to change plans (from P1 to E1, for instance).

orionblastar• 13 years ago

Why can't we just roll our own CalDAV server via open source projects instead of getting upset that Google is dropping it?

Google is dropping Reader, but we can use opens source projects to find another RSS reader. Heck I use Thunderbird for my RSS reading.

tomflack• 13 years ago

For me, I have no problem running my own contacts/calendar server with calDAV/cardDAV support. I really hate running email servers though - and it's really nice to have your contacts and calendars integrated with your webmail.

XorNot• 13 years ago

I've been looking for a good calendar/contacts server, my general requirement being a really understandable backend data format (i.e. so I can just copy my home directory off the server and get everything).

Radicale looks nice, but I haven't managed to get it to work properly so far.

TimCinel• 13 years ago

There's Baikal Server[1], which is a pretty neat project that allows you to host and manage several CalDAV and CardDAV accounts on a server. Have been running it for nearly two months with absolutely no issue.

Nobody's pulling the rug out from under me. Except me.

[1] http://baikal-server.com/

spinchange4• 13 years ago

For one reason, Google has a paid enterprise offering that they sell under contract and dropping support for this is the second shoe to drop in breaking one of its most important components for commercial use. Not every small business has the resources or inclination to DIY their own hosted calendar service, especially when they're already paying for one.

raldi2• 13 years ago

Can someone explain, in a way that assumes no prior knowledge of CalDAV, what the impact of this change will be?

spinchange4• 13 years ago

Short, worst-case answer: Google web calendars no longer syncing with Microsoft or Apple's local ones. There are finer points and some exceptions, but that's the basic bottom line.

raldi2• 13 years ago

Like, right now you can sync iCal on your Mac with Google Calendar, but next year that won't be possible?

What about on an iPhone?

zmmmmm• 13 years ago

> If you’re a developer and the Calendar API won’t work for you, please fill out this form to tell us about your use case and request access to whitelisted-only CalDAV API

I hope a lot of developers write to google and just tell them they simply can't afford resources to support proprietary APIs when perfectly good open APIs exist. That's a good enough reason to me. The idea that Google is going to continue maintaining a CalDAV API but expects legions of 3rd party developers to devote time and effort to making special calendar integrations for their proprietary API is obnoxious. At very least, some more rationalization of this is needed from Google.

fuck_google• 13 years ago

Nomen est omen.

Google: Do what you want with Reader, but don't kill CalDAV

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