Re: [Evolution] CalDAV - any successes out there

["Patrick O'Callaghan" <poc usb ve>]

On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 23:49 +0000, Pete Biggs wrote:
> > Something that can be made to work with the Exchange instead of going 
> > through the Outlook Web Access which basically makes working with 
> > Exchange a total PITA.  This is a productivity killer.
> >  
>
> I know nothing about Exchange, but I was under the impression that the only
> way a non-Windows client can get access to Exchange was via OWA.  There
> is nothing that Evo can do about that - it's because MS doesn't publish the
> interface "standard".  After all, that was why Brutus was created - but 
> then
> people grouch that it has to run on a windows box!

The MS interface is MAPI (Mail API), which is a proprietary MS protocol.
Third party clients can apparently use it by paying MS a licence fee.
This is of course useless for free software projects. However people
have been trying to reverse-engineer MAPI wire protocol, with varying
degrees of success (it appears to be intentionally obfuscated). Thus for
example the "standard" (non-Brutus) Exchange plugin for Evo is
independant of MS. There is also a non-Evo project called Openchange
which claims to be making progress, see http://www.openchange.org.

poc