Contributing CalDAV support for Symbian OS:

An Early Contribution

Maximilian Odendahl, Software Engineer

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Agenda
Who am I?
The ongoing contribution by Sun
Introduction to CalDAV
Current development, QA and the future
Contributing to the Symbian platform

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Who am I?
Pursuing a Master's degree in Computer
Engineering in Aachen, Germany
Currently working at Sun Microsystems in
Santa Clara, CA, USA
5+ years of Symbian experience
OpenOffice.org core domain developer
Sports, sports, sports
Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems
27/10/2009
 Introduction to CalDAV
Calendaring Extensions to WebDAV
Described in RFC 4791 since March 2007
Allows clients to access calendaring and
scheduling information on a remote server
Based heavily on existing standards such
as iCalendar, HTTP and WebDAV

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Introduction to CalDAV
Designed for implementation by any
collaborative software, client or server,
that needs to maintain, access or share
collections of events
Developed as an open standard to foster
interoperability between software from
different implementors
Gained industry wide support very rapidly

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Introduction to CalDAV
Large number of servers:
Sun Calendar Server 7
Google and Yahoo Calendar
Oracle
Apple

Growing number of clients:

Mozilla Thunderbird
Apple iCal
Iphone
Evolution
Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems
27/10/2009
 Introduction to CalDAV

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Why is it important for Symbian?
Open platform → open standards
User wants access to own data from
different devices without being locked in
Up-to-date data on desktop, mobile and
web
Opens a wide range of personal, business
and enterprise use case

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Why is it important to Symbian?

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Why is it important for Symbian?
Bug entry: Add support for external calendars via CalDav
Yes please! this is the main reason why Im selling my g1..
Oh yes! I can not believe that an internet enabled modern Smartphone
does not do this. Really, I'm shocked. Fix this, this is ridiculous.
Without this, the calendar is pretty much useless
A modern smartphone should be able to handle external calendars via
iCal / CalDAV
I need this feature as well, for both work and private
It's a must-have feature for every business phone. And it's a big
disappointment to me that it's not been implemented yet

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 What exactly is going on?
Development started during the summer
Close cooperation with the Organizer
Package owner, Sharad Upadhyay
Planned to be merged for Symbian^3

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 What exactly is supported?
CalDAV and GroupDAV
Ctag and WebDAV sync extension
Dynamic discovery of server capabilities
Multiple calendars, integration into native
calendar, offline use

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Interoperability, QA and testing
Ensure high quality and integration with a
large number of different servers
Test against many different
implementations
writing data: be as compliant as possible
reading data: be as tolerant as possible

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Interoperability, QA and testing
Automated test suite
Participated at CalConnect interoperability
event at Apple's campus in October 2009

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 The future - Get involved
Creating and deleting remote calendars
CalDAV Scheduling Extensions to
WebDAV
Add invitees to event
Free/Busy lookup
Discovery of CalDAV Push-Notification

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 The future - Get involved

CardDAV:

vCard Extensions to WebDAV

Open platform – open standard
Stay ahead of the curve

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Where can I find more info?
http://tinyurl.com/seecaldav
Links, latest info, testing information,
source code, demo accounts

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian
CalDAV plugin is one of the first outside
contributions:
Issues, thoughts, and tips for new
contributors

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
Contributing to Symbian - continued

Symbian will be completely open source

in 2010
Many new opportunities
Your chance to shape the platform

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
Contributing to Symbian - continued

Fix, enhance, extend, invent

Different, lightweight processes based on
complexity of the contribution
http://tinyurl.com/SEECQS

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
Contributing to Symbian - continued

Show good community behavior,

especially: communicate, communicate,
communicate
Contributions that are easy to accept
Respects the role of the package owner

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian - Issues
All package owners are from Nokia
Corporate goals
All contributions are pushed directly into
MCL
Communication, communication,
communication

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
Contributing to Symbian - Issues
Emulator instability
FAULT: KERN 0x00000065 (101), harvesterserver kern-exec,
telephonyaudioroutingserver failed, harvesterserver user 0, homescreen
viewsvr, contacts viewsvr

Build system
resources and delivering
long-lasting dependency checks
delivering of header files
Windows only, including old dependencies

Internet connection
Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems
27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian - Wanted
Simulator
Reference platform including baseport
Freely available, reliable toolchain
Support for gcc
Buildbots and status updates

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian - Tips
Use existing resources of Symbian OS
Existing Symbian C++ knowledge applies the exact same
way
Forum Nokia, Samsung Mobile Innovator, Sony
Developer World and others
Manufacturer discussion boards as well as independent
ones such as NewLC
Symbian OS: huge repository of example code

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian - Tips
Use existing resources of the Foundation
Wiki
Mailing lists
Forums
FCL to host your code
Community Managers

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian - Tips
Use existing tools and plugins for the
tools used by the Foundation
Carbide(Eclipse)
Mercurial
Bugzilla

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian
MercurialEclipse
http://www.vectrace.com/mercurialeclipse

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Contributing to Symbian
MyLyn: http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009
 Thank you!

Questions & Answers

Maximilian Odendahl, Sun Microsystems

27/10/2009