Pocock: Calendar and Contact data with free software in the Smartphone era

At his blog, Daniel Pocock assesses the state of free software support for calendar and contact data on smartphones. Historically, he notes, a number of approaches were tried and failed to pick up significant traction, such as LDAP and SyncML. "The good news is, CardDAV and CalDAV are gaining traction, in no small part due to support from Apple and the highly proprietary iPhone. Some free software enthusiasts may find that surprising. It appears to be a strategic move from Apple, using open standards to compete with the dominance of Microsoft Exchange in large corporate networks." Despite the openness of the standards, however, Pocock goes on to detail a number of challenges to working with them in free software on a mobile phone.