[Fsuk-manchester] Using Google Calendar

[Lucy]

Hi there,

I've been having discussions offlist with someone about putting a
calendar widget on the MFS website to advertise future events (for
example we have talks planned for next year up until May, but they
won't get advertised until nearer the time otherwise). This would then
be made available in the free iCal format for anyone to use.

It was suggested that we use Google Calendar for this. As an example
see http://www.substance.coop/calendar. I'm against this because it's
non-free software, even though the data is in a free format (and even
though I use gmail :/ ).

I'm very interested to hear people's opinions on this. Is it enough
that the data is free or should all the software be free as well? As
the choice of software won't directly affect people, does it even
matter?

Lucy

p.s For further reading there's lots of thought and debate on this
sort of thing at http://autonomo.us

p.p.s Flame proof hats are available on request.