As to the problem itself, that is addressed in this debian bugs:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … ug=1038930
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … ug=1055771
First one has a working patch, second has not.
Both aren't fixed yet.

Devuan only modifies a relatively small number of Debian packages (to remove systemd entanglement - usually when a package has "Depends: systemd"), the majority of packages are unmodified from Debian repositories.

(In addition to searching as you did, you can tell when you have a Devuan-modified package by looking for "devuan" in the Version, and checking for "pool/DEVUAN/" at the start of the filename. The radicale package does not have these, because it comes from Debian.)

So, if Debian's radicale package supplies a sysvinit script (which it appears to here), and you've identified a problem with that script, then the report should go via Debian's bug tracker  (i.e. not direct to Radicale's bug tracker).

So do I open a Devuan bug for this and if necessary the maintainers will bush it upstream, if necessary? (devuan -> debian -> radicale).

OK, that seems the wrong way to do it. I searched bugs.devuan.org for radicale:
"There is no maintainer for radicale. This means that this package no longer exists (or never existed). Please do not report new bugs against this package."

Meanwhile on my installation:

# apt-cache search radicale
python3-radicale - simple calendar and addressbook server - python3 module
radicale - simple calendar and addressbook server - daemon

Same result for my chimeara (server) and daedalus(desktop) installation.

So, first upgrad my server to deadalus and then if the problem still exists a bug repost to debian (since there is no devuan maintainer) ?

I did open an bug here
https://github.com/Kozea/Radicale/issues/1412

the bug I posted earlier is marked closed:
https://github.com/Kozea/Radicale/issues/1188

But didn't fixed my problem. I could try to use the default storage location, but that would be in /var/lib which feels somewhat wrong for me.

ttps://radicale.org/v3.html

that webpage has an incredible amount of information
(good to take it all in when you have the time, especially the "about" section)

also of additional note:

attempted to visit one of the links on that webpage:
ttps://openports.se/productivity/radicale

and failed to find anything related to radicale but there was a notice dated 20230130 at ttps://openports.se/

CALDIR=/var/lib/$NAME

That's the default path for storing the calendar-files,
which later on is used in the script as location for the calendar file, which is odd, since you can define that in
/etc/radicale/config.
Where I did this:

[storage]
# Folder for storing local collections, created if not present
filesystem_folder = /data/ordnung/radicale/collections

I do find that a bit off. Why define the storage path i the init-script, if there is config file for that?

also the init-sscript has this comment:

# Description:          Start/Stop the Radicale CalDAV and CardDAV
#                       server, configurable via /etc/default/radicale.

and /etc/default/radicale looks like this:

# Defaults for radicale calendar server (sourced from /etc/init.d/radicale)

# If you want radicale to be started as a system service,
# enable it using the command 'update-rc.d radicale enable'

# Options for radicale on startup
# Note that most options can be specified in /etc/radicale/config
RADICALE_OPTS="--daemon"

# Make initscript verbose, override system default
# (Note: This is ONLY about the initscript!)
VERBOSE=yes

If that seems a bit confused, you are right, I am...

Hadn't time to test it jet. I'll be back.

Starting manually works with the config file:

radicale -D -C config

I can the reach the server and generate a calendar, which is accessible from Thunderbird

However the init-script fails me:

 root@homeserver# /etc/init.d/radicale start
Starting Radicale CalDAV server : radicale.
root@homeserver# /etc/init.d/radicale status
radicale is not running ... failed

I did enable the service before with:

 update-rc.d radicale enable

unfortunately the log-dir stays empty:

/var/log/radicale