Chandler 0.1 Released

kolchak writes "Very promising news is Chandler 0.1 (the Open Source PIM) has finally been released. 'While we are still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project. We have made the release available for download, opened up our bug tracking database, and opened our source code repository.'" This is Mitch Kapor's attempt to offer an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, especially to small (under 100-person) organizations, last mentioned in December.

Comments

Already emulating Outlook well

[davidmb]

Since I just managed to crash it.

No virus propagation yet though, it is only 0.1 I suppose.

Does it run on FreeBSD?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use FreeBSD exclusively, so it's important that the software be truly portable without any incompatible linuxisms.

Re:Does it run on FreeBSD?

[sneakybilly]

It uses python dude. Python runs on FreeBSD.

Re:Does it run on FreeBSD?

[pldms]

I believe it's using python and wxWindows for the front end, so I assume it will work fine.

Re:Does it run on FreeBSD?

[jvervloet]

I tried to build it on FreeBSD 5.0-RELEASE-p7, but it didn't work. The error log complains about `No iconv() implementation found in C library or libiconv'. I installed the iconv port, but it didn't help.

Re:Does it run on FreeBSD?

[cymen]

Did you install the libiconv port?

Re:Does it run on FreeBSD?

[jvervloet]

Did you install the libiconv port?

Yes I did. iconv depends on libiconv.

any other similar OSS projects?

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it awkward that there are no previous attempts at open-source PIM. aren't there?

Re:any other similar OSS projects?

[bahamat]

You apparently haven't looked.

• evolution
  
• gnome-pim
  
• korganizer
  
• ical (the application not the file format)
  
• plan
  
• mozilla (with calendar plugin)
  
• tons of still useful command line tools used back in the day before graphical displays
  
  • 
    IMHO, programs that use the new ical format for storing calendar data are the most useful. I can parse ical files easily with perl (or heck, even bash and egrep) and do all sorts of fun things with the data. There's even a php script that parses ical files for display on your website. Add webdav to your server and you've got a free calendar server for you and your closest friends.
    
    (Sorry for the shameless ical plug).

I had to ask

[Trepidity]

What's a PIM in this context?

Re:I had to ask

[REBloomfield]

Personal Information Manager

Re:I had to ask

[Mr. Slippery]

What's a PIM in this context?

A bloated e-mail client.

I like my e-mail client and my calendar separate, thank you very much, just like I like my e-mail client and my browser separate, and my e-mail client and my text editor separate. It's good that they can talk to one another, yes; but gluing them together is a lousy idea.

Re:I had to ask

[Surak]

I like my e-mail client and my calendar separate, thank you very much, just like I like my e-mail client and my browser separate, and my e-mail client and my text editor separate. It's good that they can talk to one another, yes; but gluing them together is a lousy idea.

Three words: KMail, KOrganizer, KATE.

Re:I had to ask

[BrokenHalo]

Don't you get ktired of keverything kbeginning with a kfucking K? :-)

Re:I had to ask

[Surak]

Know, KI kdon't. 'K? :-P

"alternative to outlook"

[JohnFluxx]

Please note that this is not a straight replacement, or something that is like outlook (that is what kroupware etc is aiming for) but they are aiming more to change things to make it better.

Btw, did anyone find any screenshots? :)

Features

[rf0]

When I went to have a look at the site I had a list of things I would want to see. These were

Diary
Sharing of Calenders
Phone book

Now this has all of them as well as a few other cools things like inbuilt IM. Good luck to them I say. However I'm not sure but does the system has a centeral server it good log into rather than just peer to peer as it says?

Rus

Nothing to see

[seizer]

Nothing to see here, move on, move on.

I just got the XP build, and I can't really see how it bloated to 13mb already. I'll have assume that there's a really large API behind the scenes, because the interface is little more than a MyFirstCalendarApp.vb

Oh and 10 seconds saw me crashing it too, just like the other poster.

Still, it's 0.1, so I'm not grumbling yet.

Re:Nothing to see

[vrt3]

I suspect a large part of that 13mb is the Python runtime that's included in the download. I didn't try it, but I suppose you can get the Python sources without the runtime if you already have Python installed, and the download should be much less that way.

Re:Nothing to see

[ptbarnett]

I suspect a large part of that 13mb is the Python runtime that's included in the download.

The python22.dll used by py2exe is only 825 Kbytes. There must be a lot more than the Python runtime.

Re:Nothing to see

[vrt3]

It's not only the python runtime, but also the wxWindows library and other 3d-party libraries. Also see this response to a similar question on comp.lang.python.

Lotus Agenda

[Anonymous Coward]

Note that Lotus Agenda, a distant ancestor of this program, is available for free. It's tricky toget working on a new PC, its interface is abysmally clunky by today's standard, but its approach to PIM (that's Personal Information Management) is really great. Agenda was for managing ANY information that you, personally, might want to track. It's like a dynamically-typed relational database, or something.

In that case no one will use it.

[BitwizeGHC]

Call it the law of Open Source Pangloss Parity: No one will use a piece of consumer oriented open source software unless it looks and behaves exactly like some piece of Microsoft software, no matter how badly the behavior of said MS software was designed.

Re:In that case no one will use it.

[JanneM]

I don't necessarily agree. While Exchange is used in many (if not all) larger organizations, frequently, each exchange installation covers only a subset of the organization, such as one department or workgroup. Within such a group - and especially if they have the budgetary responsibility for their installation - moving to a different, better, solution may well be worth the pain.

Also, and more important, they are aiming for the small organization. How many 3-10 employee companies would have an exchange server already? How many 10-50 employee organizations in other areas than north america and europe? I know we do not (we're three people total), and we certainly could use something like this, if it is painless enough to deploy.

Re:In that case no one will use it.

[BrokenHalo]

Pangloss Parity: No one will use a piece of consumer oriented open source software unless it looks and behaves exactly like some piece of Microsoft software

Except in the best of all possible worlds - since no-one else seems to have caught the reference... :-)

Re:In that case no one will use it.

[iabervon]

That's probably true in the business world, but home users will prefer to use software whose design lets home users use it than do nothing. The point of this design is to allow people to do groupware-type things even without a group that has a server. I know many extended families now have mailing lists they use to keep in touch and plan things, but I don't know of any with an exchange server.

Re:In that case no one will use it.

[SWroclawski]

This is such a silly statement I wasn't sure whether to reply to it or use my last moderator point to mark it as "Troll".

There are lots of Free Software out that doesn't look or act anything like Microsoft software, and those people who switch over will use it and may even like it.

In addition, the idea you've expressed implies the idea that we in the Free Software and Open Source movements don't have any new ideas about making things better. I think that we do, and some features from our work has and will emerge more in the other world (Microsoft and Apple).

If we limit ourselves to copy the design and interface of Microsoft instead of trying to take the best of all sides and making something new and interesting (as it appears Chander is trying to do) then we will doom ourselves in never implmenting things "right", we will limit the ways that we think, and ultimately we'll have less code, since mere copying isn't fun for creative people.

- Serge Wroclawski

Re:In that case no one will use it.

[RevAaron]

It was a joke, but incidentally also somewhat true. It certainly isn't a 'law,' but an alarmingly large amount of open source projects just attempt to emulate some MS app.

There are definately a lot of open source projects which aren't like MS stuff, but it isn't what is getting used with the majority of users. No, xedit is little like notepad.exe, but very few people use it. GNOME and KDE and a lot of associated projects do little to 'innovate' outside what MS has already done, to use MS's catchphrase.

Yes, it works on Windows

[vrt3]

There are binaries available on the site; the link says they are for Windows XP, but I tried them succesfully on Windows 2000. Mac OSX is also supported.

Not coincidentally, the list of supported platforms is the same as wxWindows, since Chandler is written in Python and uses the wxPython GUI toolkit, which is a Python binding to wxWindows.

I tested the "windows version"

[fluor2]

This seem to be another open-source program that try to involve EVERYTHING (email, calendar, chat, documents etc).

Well as it is coded in python, this is pretty multiple-platform compatible.

I extracted the windows zip-file and ran the chandler.bat

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I clicked next on the welcome picture. I immediately noticed that this is a non-standard windows application..

The first thing I tried was simple outlook behaviour. It shows the calendar, but it does not feature any clicking in the calendar (like adding appointments etc). But the weeks are displayed correctly.

It seems like this program is like alpha alpha, and it does not give any functionality (unless you like watching on a week ;) ).

Ok good luck to the authors. I still think you have a very long way untill you can compete with outlook etc. I suggest taking a look at Evolution first.

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[seizer]

You can sort of click-drag on the weekly calendar, to add an appointment. It's not totally non-interactive :-)

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[Anonymous Coward]

I immediately noticed that this is a non-standard windows application.

The curse of wxWindows. You can right an application that runs on Windows 95, WindowsXP, Mac OSX, Gnome and KDE, but it won't comply with any of the user interface guidelines on any of them, but at least everyone will be confused equally and on all platforms at the same time.

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[Surak]

I clicked next on the welcome picture. I immediately noticed that this is a non-standard windows application..

Looks fine to me on NT 4.0. :)

The first thing I tried was simple outlook behaviour. It shows the calendar, but it does not feature any clicking in the calendar (like adding appointments etc). But the weeks are displayed correctly.

You can create an appointment by click-dragging on a day in the weekly calendar view. You type your appointment into the green box. Then you can resize the green box to make the appointment longer or shorter. You can also drag and drop the appointment to a different day/time slot.

I don't think it's intended to be a clone of Outlook as far as UI, I think they're going for *easier* to use than Outlook. Which is good, because we need to IMPROVE on closed source ideas, not play catchup.

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[Azghoul]

"It seems like this program is like alpha alpha".

Uhm, you mean like the fact that it's version 0.1, and if you read more than the download section you might notice that it's essentially a preview?

Good job man.

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[BigBir3d]

catchup - Uma Thurman - Pulp Fiction

lol :)

(damn its early...)

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[bahamat]

It seems like this program is like alpha alpha

Wow, you're sharp as a bowling ball. Did you figure that out from the 0.1 release number?

He's been working on it about 8 months (iirc), and to have this many features in that ammount of time for this type of application, I'd say that's pretty substantial. Chandler has the potential to kick the pants off of Outlook-not-so-good when it fully matures.

Re:I tested the "windows version"

[goon]

try to involve EVERYTHING
like moz (nav, mail, irc, composer, address book, calander), evolution et., al. I hope you can use the calander by itself w/o firing up the whole app.
alpha alpha ... does not give any functionality
new users read this to get a high level view.

I'm sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this software BE any more released?

Re:I'm sorry

[Patrick Lewis]

It's a reference to Chandler from Friends. I am ashamed that I got the joke, but I did. Feel proud that you didn't.

Re:I'm sorry

[invisibastard]

Don't run it on RedHat's Phoebe beta... My freind runs Gentoo and he emerged it before it was even written, a year ago. I think he is at the mall right now, yelling at the mall walkers about how optimized his system is. no cigs or sig.

Re:I'm sorry

[TheFrood]

My freind runs Gentoo and he emerged it before it was even written, a year ago. I think he is at the mall right now, yelling at the mall walkers about how optimized his system is.

I'm a Gentoo user myself, but I gotta admit this is really funny.

TheFrood

what's with the name?

[hkon]

From the article: Our product (code-named "Chandler" after the great detective novelist Raymond Chandler,)

Are these people so out of touch with the world most of us live in that they don't realize a lot of people will think of that goofy guy from "Friends" when they hear this name? Personally, I don't want my applications behaving anything like this guy.

Oh, and does this make Outlook Chandler's cross-dressing dad?

Re:what's with the name?

[quigonn]

I'm already looking forward to the text editor 'Ross', the web browser 'Monica', the instant messenger 'Phoebe', the software DVD player 'Joey' and the P2P program 'Rachel'. :-)

Re:what's with the name?

[Surak]

So long as that stupid theme music doesn't come up when the suite starts. o/~ No one told you life was gonna be this wayyyyyyyyyyyyy! o/~ I don't need to be reminded that my job is a joke and that I'm broke. :)

Re:what's with the name?

[bahamat]

No, you've got it wrong.

Monica is a small monitor calibration tool.
Phoebe is a Redhat release.
Rachel is a resource loading toolkit for Java Web Start/JNLP

Re:what's with the name?

[Spunk]

the web browser 'Monica'

I tried to use it but it kept going down on me.

(yes I know, wrong Monica)

Re:what's with the name?

[Snafoo]

Really, am I the only one who thought _Raymond_ Chandler?
(google for it, ya lazies.)

PIM is a perfect euphemism for a detective!

"It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of wet hard rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display hankerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks in them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything a well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."
- Raymond Chandler, _The_Big_Sleep_

Re:what's with the name?

[finity]

That's funny. I was metamoderating when I came across and just had to reply - that's exactly what I thought, and I don't even watch Friends, is it even still on?

What about support for mobile gadgets?

[MacroRex]

A quick peek at their site did not reveal any information about support for various mobile devices. For me, at least, it's crucial that my calendar app can be easily synchronized with whatever mobile gizmo I happen to be using as a calendar. While Outlook is the only viable alternative (for good or bad, I'm not a Lotus user), this thing gets only a "thumbs up" from me.

Re:What about support for mobile gadgets?

[eye69]

From the FAQ:

"Can I access Chandler through the Web or PDA?
We are not committed to develop a Web interface or PDA conduit for the Canoga release. However, these are exactly the kind of features that we expect third-party developers to develop."

They supply the framework, and the community can then easily add functionality. A modular approach is mostly always nice.

Re:What about support for mobile gadgets?

[MacroRex]

Thanks, seems that I skimmed the site too lightly.

However, I see a slight problem with the "let third parties do the work" approach. Unless they can somehow get the gadget companies themselves write the conduits it's extremely unlikely that the conduits will be adopted by companies. Companies willing to pay money for this thing want the whole package, ie. "press button and everything is sync'ed" functionality bundled with the software. Telling them to download a conduit written by some hacker is exactly what a company does not want to hear. After all, all PC suites for popular gadgets already come with Outlook conduit, why doesn't this? And making the device manufacturer's include support in their PC suites is all but impossible until you have at least two figure market share percentage.

Another way is to have some third party sell the conduit and make it effortless to buy bundled with the PIM package. This is cool with companies (though not as cool as having native support like in Outlook), but it makes it uninteresting to the average geek who in general do not want to pay to enable their devices to talk with a free software package.

Re:What about support for mobile gadgets?

[goon]

however I did see that you can at least get to the app via python. maybe possible to export data -> pilot etc.

Weenus?

[Henriok]

Is this the app to use if you have to keep the weenus in check?

Re:oooh yay!

[secolactico]

Or better yet, write alternatives to the stuff that's really holding us on Windows...

Indeed. Altho Outlook *is* holding me in windows (...and Visio and that bloody Watchguard Control Center). I have yet to see a PIM for Linux that compares to it. Evolution is nice, but is just a clone of the interface.

Now, all I need is integration with my PDA and for it to import my pst files, and according to the FAQ, it's not planned in the near future.

dammit

[Trepidity]

This is Slashdot, you're not supposed to post useful information. A "RTFA!" would've been more appropriate.

Re:oooh yay!

[say]

"I have yet to see a PIM for Linux that compares to [Outlook]. Evolution is nice, but is just a clone of the interface"

Well, if Evolution is a clone, doesn't it compare to Outlook? I think Evolution has pretty much the same advantage/disadvantage rating as Outlook. In what way does not Evolution compare to Outlook?

(Really - I'm curious!)

Docs

[ultrabot]

It's nice to see that have included so much documentation about the architecture & philosophy, considering how early in the development they are. That's *real* openness.

Re:Docs

[MrNemesis]

Maybe cos there's nothing else to document...

*rimshot*

Seriously though, it's nice to see a comparitively small project start with some half decent documentation from the off. If only more non-coding OSS users (like me) could get off their arses and write some (not like me, argh, I run away now)

Re:But Exchange is still better than anything else

[REBloomfield]

It amused me to find that Outlook Web Access for Exchange runs better through Konqueror on Linux than it does on Windows... (although the abscence of drag and drop is a shame)

Why only Win XP not 2000 or 98

[leoaugust]

If the goal is to have it used by small and medium sized businesses, why aren't there versions for Win 2000, or 98 ?? Most of the small businesses due to budget restrictions haven't yet updated to Win XP - esp due to its activation feature.

Has anyone tried to install Chandler on older Win versions?

Re:Why only Win XP not 2000 or 98

[__aahlyu4518]

Because when this thing hits 1.0, XP will be the 98 of that period in time. ;-)

Re:Why only Win XP not 2000 or 98

[bjpirt]

Has anyone tried to install Chandler on older Win versions?

Works fine on Win2K

Re:Why only Win XP not 2000 or 98

[Digitech]

It runs fine on Win98se for me. It seems remarkably stable for a 0.1 release. Sure, the features are not complete yet, but given some time, this could be better than Evolution. If the clients communicate regardless of what platform they are running on, this could be a great help to small, mixed platform offices. Some of us haven't been able to convice our bosses to switch everyone over to Linux yet.

exchange

[Valpis]

it is not the outlook client that is of most interest, it is replacing exchange as backend that we should replace first...

Re:exchange

[black666]

Yup, 100% agree. SuseOpenExchange is far too expensive and this is the only alternative I see right now. Maybe Kroupware in the near future...

Re:exchange

[Valpis]

Yes, Suse's product is expensive and fron what I have understand doesn't support large amount of users either. Kolab (kroupware?) could be interesting in the future.

But first an open backend and then we could start thinking about new clients (IMHO).

Re:exchange

[blibbleblobble]

It is not the outlook client that is of most interest, it is replacing exchange as backend that we should replace first...

Kolab server already does this [replacing exchange servers]. It works with either Outlook clients, or KMail clients.

Re:exchange

[rufus t firefly]

Even before Kroupware entered the game, phpGroupware had an XML-RPC calendar, contacts, todo, and email server available with a widely available API, and no one seems to want to write the few routines for it.

Since Chandler is wxPython/Python, it could easily use xmlrpclib to do the dirty work, yet I see nothing on their site or roadmap about this. I wonder why.

Re:exchange

[Nutcase]

Chandler makes the exchange/server component redundant in the first place. It's purely p2p and all that jazz... there is no need for an exchange server. At least, not according to the design philosophy they are pitching. Which is a good one.

The one thing that will be interesting is what happens when they realize that in most organizations people turn off their machines at night. Will they write a caching server for people's calendars and such? Or will those people's shared resources just vanish?

Re:exchange

[fawcett]

The one thing that will be interesting is what happens when they realize that in most organizations people turn off their machines at night. Will they write a caching server for people's calendars and such? Or will those people's shared resources just vanish?

From their site:

Chandler's decentralized, server-optional architecture, which permits easy self-management of collaborative environments is highly appealing to people in a wide variety of work-related settings.

Presumably "server-optional" means that you can (optionally) use a server. ;-) But I didn't read much further, perh. they have a server design in mind.

Re:Windows version ?

[evilviper]

Okay, I understand this is /. and nobody reads the articles, but why did this have to be modded up? Come on now! It takes 2 clicks, and about 3 seconds to find the list of downloads, which includes Windows...

Next up, comments asking for someone to repost the /. summary in the comments section!

So...

[RdsArts]

Of course it runs on NetBSD.

Screenshots HERE--

[Lord Prox]

I made a few screenshots. If anyone would mind mirroring them please. My little server is made from trashcan pickings (only the primo stuff :) ) and a crappy 128Kb pipe. It'll get crushed pronto...

Re:Screenshots HERE--

[Lord Prox]

Damn! It took less than 60 seconds to fill my pipe and smoke it too :)

Be kind and mirror...

I'll keep the files up till morning then the server has to go back to its usual, boring job. Enjoy.

Kinda fun watching a Slashdot effect in progress... blinkin litzen going like hell

Re:Screenshots HERE--

[Ly0n]

mirrored

njoy (long live university pipes)

btw, it looks kinda..well..dull

Re:Screenshots HERE--

[hkon]

And also at http://folk.uio.no/hakon/chandler

(yes, university pipes are nice :-)

Re:Screenshots HERE--

[henben]

btw, it looks kinda..well..dull

The dinosaur-themed skins will be in v2.0.

I don't think it's bad to "look dull" (ie look like you'd expect a PIM to look like). Exciting-looking UI is also often confusing UI. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you obviously haven't seen enough half-finished MP3 players that are supposed to look like hi-fis. Bleh.

Re:Chandler - a more fully open project?

[Cliffy03]

In Soviet Russia, Chandler Bings you!

Why reinvent the wheel? Evolution already exists

[mandreiana]

Why make your own PIM? What's wrong with Evolution? Fix it! Make a different UI, same backend, if you don't like that.

But no, now that Evolution is doing 90% of the job, let screw the rest and make another PIM. Isn't it fun to write new code?

client isn't the issue

[martin]

The server is....we need a usable, easily deployable MS-Exchange/Notes server competitor.

Sure you can build things with LDAP/Imap/web-mail and make them all talk to one-another, BUT you need a server then does alot of this for you...

Until you can point and click your way through a server installation you're not going to win over the MS-Exchange sites.

Yes SuSE have their openmail thing, but need a 'freeware' version of this that runs on *nix (ie more than just Linux, but the *BSD,SOlaris, HPUX, AIX variants as well - like Apache does).

--
Martin

Re:client isn't the issue

[override11]

And it needs to import all our bloated exchange 5.5 crud!!!!!! I'm sorry, its tough to convince everyone in this organization to switch when we are going to loose all 14 gigs of our data store. :P

Re:client isn't the issue

[martin]

well yes, there's of things it needs to do, but I'm just makingthe point the people seem to be concentrating on the client end and not the server for groupware (other than html based server s/w like phpgroupware and the ilk).

--
martin

Re:client isn't the issue

[iabervon]

This is designed to be a P2P, client-oriented system. You don't actually need to have a special server with this. From my very limited exposure (the web mail built into exchange), I've found having a server with all the data to be more of a liability, because I don't know what addresses I know.

This project is also specifically not trying to take over existing exchange/notes/outlook installations; they want to do an unrelated design so that people who aren't already tied in can start with software that's actually nicer than the non-free versions. The also want to let home users use these features without having an exchange-equivalent server in common with the users they communicate.

Re:oooh yay!

[bodgit]

The problem is the dearth of apps that already do this, and try and do it like Outlook does for no good reason other than that.

Sure there are reasons for trying to make things Outlook-alike, ease of migration for one, but are you sure the Outlook way is the right way? I for one don't use it being of the *nix persuasion, but I have to support it from an administration POV, and I find myself going through the setup/option dialogs in circles. It sucks from that perspective alone.

Good for them that they're at least trying to do things differently rather than write Yet Another Outlook Clone.

Re:Why reinvent the wheel? Evolution already exist

[JanneM]

I love Evolution. It is the best thing to have happened to my mail reading in years. I currently run the 1.3.2 prerelease, and I enjoy it immensely despite a number of bugs and other issues.

That said, Evolution is not an answer. Evo is a client. The server side is almost totally lacking. Chandler provides this in the form of a Peer-to-Peer style server/client architecture. What could (and, I believe, should) be done is to write an extension/plugin for Evolution to access the Chandler server functionality. That way you can use Evo as part of a Chandler setup, or use Chandlers own frontend whichever one you want/like. /Janne

Suggestion for the name of the binary...

[Anonymous Coward]

Chandler.Bing

Ta-daaa!

Re:Why reinvent the wheel? Evolution already exist

[Anonymous Coward]

Evolution is an outlook-workalike. That is to say, PIM defined as "Personal-Information management" i.e. "Information about people".

Chandler is a modernised Lotus Agenda. That is to say, PIM defined as "Personal Information-Management" i.e. "Information I personally want to manage"

Bit of a difference.

Re:And in other news...

[Cliffy03]

I think I saw "Phoebe" wearing a Red Hat instead.

Very promising news ?

[YE]

Very promising, until you actually try it out. This thing makes *Java* desktop application look nimble, elegant, responsive and well thought out.

Yes, release early, yadda yadda, but this was _too_ early.

Re:Screenshots HERE-- Thanks

[Lord Prox]

Thanks for the mirror! Ya just earned a fan.

I know the screen shots are a little dull, but the UI will improve. I did like some of the feature set I saw but it will have to come a long way to be a real threat to LookOut/Exchange. Does anyone know why they chose a peer to peer arrangement instead of a dedicated server? It would seem that a dedicated server would make administration and backups easier...

Or is it just me?

Re:widget set...

[Eric Ass Raymond]

GTK2 on the other hand has style, class and finesse

WTF? Style, class and finesse like the fact that some bloody idiot decided to write it in an object oriented style without actually using an object oriented language?!

pay for the full versions of several applications

Since you sound like a real hard-core Stallmannian I recommend that your read your Lord and Savior's holy writings again. Stallman has absolutely no problems with people writing software for money and keeping those parts (both binary AND source) closed.

Re:Why reinvent the wheel? Evolution already exist

[spookymonster]

Perhaps you missed the part where they said they were trying to implement a cross-platform solution? AFAIK, Evolution isn't available on Windows.

Re:Lotus Agenda - Now THAT was a PIM!

[RobotRunAmok]

There's never been anything like Agenda, before or since. Now, THERE was software!

DOS-based, fast as lightning, completely (and intimidatingly) customizable (It opened into a blank page, if I recall correctly). It took any bit of info you wanted to throw at, and allowed you to establish your own relations among the bits. It was a database, an organizer, a rolodex, a "sketchpad for ideas," it was transcendant! No online component (E-Mail, Web) cuz there was no online component to your life -- this was circa 91-92.

In the small office where I was the Tech guru at the time, no two workers' Agenda looked and ran the same -- everybody used it a different way, and the interface reflected that (Ultimately, it was probably that aspect of it which prevented it's widespread adoption in bigger shops.)

Then along came Windows 3.1 and the Web, and upheaval. Lotus spiked Agenda, replacing it with a Win-based Lotus Organizer 1.0. I moved the company over to Jensen's "Commence" program, which held some of Agenda's flavor but proved an administrative bear.

If Chandler can even approach lighting a candle to Agenda (sorry...) -- and run on Linux as well -- I'm there, Opneing Day. But I suspect it'll be targeting the regimented Outlook suits, and not us "Agenda hippies"...

Re: Linuxisms

[pix]

It's written in Python - so it will work anywhere where python goes. At this stage I suspect that they are more interested in getting some functionality in there so they are focusing on the platforms that they themselves use. I would expect that to change as they get to 0.1

Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[rufus t firefly]

This is *not* flamebait, but why in the world is everyone obsessed with writing clients, but no one wants to either write a server, or interface with an existing groupware server?

phpGroupware exposed their API through both SOAP and XML-RPC, and I have yet to see *anything* use their backend, other than an old Delphi frontend for WinXX which was yanked from their site. I'm sure there are other web-based groupware suites that also have web-services available, and yet no one wants to build interfaces to them?

Don't get me wrong, Evolution is a nice toy, but only that in the realm of business until someone decides that they want to interface it with an existing groupware server (other than Exchange, which is quite closed-source...), since otherwise there is no open solution to doing this.

I contacted the Evolution people at least a year ago about interfacing with phpGroupware, to get a reply of "if you can reverse-engineer our calendar API, which isn't documented anywhere, you can write it yourself...". (No disrespect to the developers of Evolution intended, but I'm trying to make a point about the little emphasis any of the major groups seem to place on enterprise adoption.)

Re:Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[FattMattP]

Do you really want your server component for this to run in PHP? That's not going to be very efficient as compared to a daemon written in, say, C.

Re:Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[irix]

If you want to sync with Evolution, you should check out MultiSync.

I am a developer, currently writing a plugin for Zaurus/Opie devices. MultiSync already has an Evolution plugin that works well.

If you are interested in writing a plugin for PHPGroupware, you should drop by the devel mailing list.

Re:Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[rufus t firefly]

Do you really want your server component for this to run in PHP? That's not going to be very efficient as compared to a daemon written in, say, C.

The issue isn't speed; it's that there is a server already developed that runs using PHP. Even though everyone says it would only take a little bit of effort to write a good server in C, I really haven't seen any open-source ones.

Writing a plugin to use an already existing server would save developers from having to reinvent the wheel. (Also, with a performance caching system (bware, apc, zend), PHP isn't really that slow.)

Re:Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[JasonAsbahr]

Maybe the reluctance was because phpGroupware isn't seen as a significant player yet for the "Enterprise"? Not to say the Evolution folks shouldn't document their calendar APIs... : )

Re:Why is everyone obsessed with clients?

[lux55]

What would be nice is a standard SOAP and XML-RPC API for communicating between groupware clients and servers. Sort of like the blogger API for weblogs, only obviously way more sophisticated and secure.

Even if different groupware servers (and perhaps their client counterparts) supported only a basic set of common SOAP/XML-RPC calls, and extended that with custom features, at least *some* level of interoperability could be achieved (in the next decade or so).

Btw, the new phpGroupWare theme is awesome!

Re:Why reinvent the wheel? Evolution already exist

[__past__]

Well, on Windows you can use an Evolution clone called "Outlook" that works nearly as well. The transition should be fairly easy.

Um, wait...

Re:Lotus Agenda - Now THAT was a PIM!

[pix]

I thought that was the point behind Chandler. Mitch Kapoor was the guy behind Agenda and is the guy behind this... If you read his articles on the subject then I would hope that we will some Agenda-like functionality.

Of course, we're only on 0.1, so what we get here is hardly representative of what might come.

Similar project

[aliWiz]

I have found another similar project based on Java and using a decentralized (p2p) architecture http://www.dynamicobjects.com/

Re:Similar project

[codepunk]

Cool but the source is not yet released. It is pretty obvious that it is based on SWT widgets, a very good choice in it's design. He also mentions plugins so I would also assume that it is based on the eclipse jface framework. The release license will probably dictate the outcome.

Re:Similar project

[Insurgent2]

Look closer...Spaces UI is actually done using Swing. Just meticulously hand-crafted to be visually appealing and responsive. The soon-to-be-released beta should be even better.

Re:oooh yay!

[Drinian]

Could you name some...groupware that can run cross platform (Windows and *nix), sync with your palm, is open source, and doesn't need an Exchange$$ server? It seems to me, this will be a killer app for small businesses when it fully matures.

0.1?

[Qbertino]

At that rate it would be, mmmm, let's see ...
another 10 years until final release?
No?
Whatever, good luck anyway.

He deserves a chance at least for one thing...

[bahamat]

There's 114 comments and his site hasn't been /.ed yet and I just downloaded chandler at almost 200KB/s.

P2P

[Samus]

On the surface p2p sounds like a great idea for a PIM app that needs collaboration. Then I start thinking about the holes this leaves. Suppose I use a laptop at work and take it home every now and then. If I leave at 4 and somebody wants to schedule a meeting with me for 7:00 AM the next day after I have left, how does it then confirm the appointment? If I just turn my machine off at night then anybody that wants to poll my schedule will have to wait until I come in in the morning. The next hurdle to get over would be the bandwidth issues. P2P apps are necessarily chatty. On a small lan that might not be such a big deal but a decent sized company will surely squash this like netbios. Will anybody want to invest in a program that they know their company will not be able to use a few years down the road when they have tripled in size? Realistically speaking most small companies are not going to triple in size in the next few years but admitting so is like saying that their growth is permantly stunted.

Re:P2P

[codepunk]

Well perhaps a web service or many web services that answers on your behalf and also happens to be a peer on the network. Just because it is p2p does not mean that servers cannot be used with it. Most of this stuff I would assume will be added as gateway services. This of course also allows you to grow functionality without reconfiguring the entire network.

Re:But Exchange is still better than anything else

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook Web Access is HTML on konqueror, but an ActiveX executable on IE. That may be what causes the differences.

SW: A better free alternative

[MarkSwanson]

http://www.ScheduleWorld.com/ :-)

Re:SW: A better free alternative

[Queuetue]

That's not free - it's just cheap.

Re:SW: A better free alternative

[MarkSwanson]

In a previously offensive /. posting from you towards me, I responded. After each of my posts someone executed a bandwidth-stealing script against my site. I suspected it was you and blocked the origin of the IP traffic: 195.83.215.2/24. This belongs to: *.cetmef.equipement.gouv.fr. If this was not you, email support@scheduleworld.com using your ISPs email (or work email) (please include your phone number and mailing address too) and we'll get this sorted out.

Re:SW: A better free alternative

[Queuetue]

What? Do you think you know me, or are you insane?

Re:SW: A better free alternative

[MarkSwanson]

Nice try queuetue... BTW, it's interesting that you couldn't find a _single_ thing wrong with it. :-)

Re:SW: A better free alternative

[stepson]

It was me, i stole your bandwidth. I'm sorry. I'll give it back now. It didn't taste good anyway.

The Drop-In Exchange-Killer

[MoNickels]

By our own Roblimo, no less: Replacing Microsoft Exchange with a Linux-based solution.

Re:The Drop-In Exchange-Killer

[martin]

still costs lots - esp by the time you've added in MAPI access!

Like I said needs to be cheap to 'buy' and cheap to 'install/run' (ie free) for most to most, other wise whats the point?

Re:Lotus Agenda - Now THAT was a PIM!

[mkoenecke]

There *was* something like Lotus Agenda: WordPerfect/Novell/Corel InfoCentral. A free form relational database. Still works great, and has its own macro language which I enjoy working with.

bloated, wtf?

[asv108]

Obviously you don't run windows apps too often if you think 13 mb is bloated I suggest you take a look at the outlook install on your windows machine. Even evolution has an installer of 8 megs and doesn't even share calendars. If you bothered take a closer look at the website you would find that:

The installer includes a cross platform windowing toolkit and python.

Re:bloated, wtf?

[RevAaron]

Not that I personally think this is too bloated, but in my own PDA operating environment/OS, I manage to fit in about 8 MB a PIM as well as a web browser; IRC client; email client; full development environment including a robust, mature IDE; graph plotter; a cross-platform windowing toolkit and window manager; an object database (used for data storage) and a bunch of useful libraries.

If they are working with Python, I guess that is the what happens- you get stuck with a big runtime. My only point is that these things can be included in a dynamic language runtime without making it quite so huge... Python could do better, but I don't see any push to do so in the Python community. (and no, I'm not ripping on Python!)

Re:Lotus Agenda - Now THAT was a PIM!

[Enry]

IIRC, it would look at your notes and automagically insert todos/meetings. Writing a note that read "closing on house next tuesday at 10AM", it would insert a meeting for 4/29 at 10AM (next tuesday for me) with the contents of the note. Or a pointer.

Mac OS X Screenshot

[christurkel]

Here is Chandler running on Mac OS X. It seems to have UI issues, or issues with my screen size since some of the icons in the upperleft are obscured by the menu bar. Chandler: http://homepage.mac.com/zizban/chandler.jpg

screenshots

[dmarien]

allways useful, and they'll have more testers and those who follow through and actually download/install their software.

to paraphrase rat poison's (x gui/shell) site, screenshots - because too many ppl will bitch in their absence.

Re:screenshots

[rolfpal]

Here is a screenshot (big 1400 X 1050)

As far as I can see, it rocks.

Cheers,

Dearth means "lack of"

[frenchgates]

I think the word you were looking for is "plethora." The opposite of dearth.

Re:Dearth means "lack of"

[zeugma-amp]

I think the word you are looking for is "sarcasm". ;-)

Re:widget set...

[Nutcase]

Stallman has absolutely no problems with people writing software for money and keeping those parts (both binary AND source) closed.

Um.. what? So what is this whole free software thing then? If he has no problems with proprietary software, why did his first encounter with it via a printer driver lead to him starting an entire movement to free software?

When all is said...

[Apostata]

...about whether this is Outlook2 or not, my question is: Why the hell is Slashdot promoting a 0.1 release? Should I expect the next point-release of Slypheed or Aethena to be similarly promoted?

If it's about the author, focus on him...the app itself is practically useless at this point.

Re:When all is said...

[OpenSourced]

Why the hell is Slashdot promoting a 0.1 release?

Perhaps because its a relatively well-founded open source project trying to fill a gap in the free toolbox (No, Evolution fills not the gap, it doesn't work in Windows), and doing it first with a long time timeframe in mind and second with an idea of paying for itself in the long term. Also, Chandler is meant to be a replacement also for Exchange.

So it's important. If Chandler fails the feasibility of open source as a bussiness model will suffer a dent, contrariwise if it succeeds.

In related musings, there is no pleasing the /. crowd. If they release early, they are rushing to market, and hacking an unfinished desing. If they release late, they are Just Another Vaporware Application (TM). Releasing early was included from the first, as a mean to get feedback from the community.

Re:When all is said...

[Apostata]

Point taken.

I guess I'm just tainted by so many other app releases lately. It's easy to get your hopes up regarding an app like Evolution, then only to realise that it's not much more than an Outlook clone (albeit more secure, I hope). I suppose the "watch this baby rip!" application enthusiasms of a couple of years ago (hello, Nautilus) have sown the seeds of distrust today.

Best of luck to Chandler - and thanks for the response :)

Chahahandalar

[JohnCC]

We are still very early in the design and implementation process...

This bothers me. They are already implementing an unfinished design - isn't this called "hacking"? I think we have enough amateurish bloatware, it seems eveyone wants to make another mail client, another web browser - why can't they either fix what's out there or make something new... I have nothing against hacking, but there deluding themselves thinking they have designed a "new" application.

Re:Screenshots HERE-- Thanks

[cymen]

Does anyone know why they chose a peer to peer arrangement instead of a dedicated server?

I'd guess that would be to encourage adoption of their software from the users instead of trying to appeal to jaded system administrators and other administration folks. No server makes it much easier to adopt for a small department in a large bureaucratic company.

Re:widget set...

[IamTheRealMike]

wxPython is a binding to wxWindows, which in turn (on Linux) binds to GTK1. If you want to port wxWindows to GTK2, please do so.

I think it'd look better using GTK2 as well, especially now there is GTK-WIMP for good Win32 integration. GTK also has some really nice stock artwork. I suspect they want it to run on the Mac though.

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The RIAA will...

[julesh]

... try to ban it, of course...

Chandler will have a rich ability to [... create] a context sensitive "view" of many types of data, mixing-and-matching email, [...] MP3's ...

Chandler will make it extremely easy to share all types of information with others

There you go, its secured its own death sentence.
Hell, the page even has the words 'peer-to-peer' on it, so you can bet they know about it...

Re:oooh yay!

[kristan]

One problem is that a large percentage of business users use Windows because of Outlook. I can certainly say for myself that although there are reasonable Linux (and Mac) replacements for Word, PowerPoint, and even Excel, I have not yet seen any other application that duplicates the functionality (breadth and depth) of Outlook.

As a "knowledge worker" I'd estimate I spend 50% of my day in Outlook. Outlook really is aimed at managing your working information - emailing or calling someone in your address book, filing the notes you make on that contact, making an appointment in your calendar for that contact, etc. Plus, it integrates perfectly with Exchange server, which like it or not runs a lot of businesses.

Don't get me wrong, I hate a lot of Outlook, but having tried various replacements (Linux-based and Windows) I keep coming back to Outlook. Its the lesser of the various evils.

Because of this, I think it is admirable for folks to have another try at beating Outlook. Evolution, etc haven't done that yet, but perhaps one day Chandler, Evolution, or one of the others will do so. I will happily switch from Outlook when that day comes.

Well, I see why the download is to big...

[Queuetue]

Chandler_src_0.1.tar.gz includes the source to python, several modules including zodb, swig, wxpython, jabber-py, and thier own build system named hardhat.

Why do they feel the need to distribute those packages as part of the chandler cvs tree? Most of these modules have played well together in mixed versions for years.

Re:oooh yay!

[cyb97]

Strike open-source add a couple of $$$s and you've got Lotus Notes...

Not for me...

[CommieBozo]

I'm more interested in testing Rachel 0.1, and to a lesser extent, Monica and Phoebe 0.1.

Re:Not for me...

[/dev/trash]

mmmmmmm Phoebe.....

split mind

[Tom]

Got a split opinion about that. For one, everything in the docs seems pretty solid. They have a concept more advanced than "let's copy outlook" and seem to know what they're doing. This might go far.

On the other hand, I ask myself why everyone and his dog is copying outlook/exchange? I'm forced to use outlook at work, and frankly, it sucks. The calender is about the only thing remotely useable, and even it has many serious shortcomings.

It can't be that difficult to write something better, can it? I mean, NOTES had features 5 years ago that are still missing from outlook today.

I'd be my marbles on a project that tries to put outlook to shame over one that tries to merely copy it any day.

Huh?

[Ratbert42]

Just from the screenshots and comments, this seems like something my friend's 13 year old could crank out in VB in a week. Not something that I'd expect my 100-person company to adopt.

Re:Huh?

[dismayed]

Why don't you read the vision document: http://www.osafoundation.org/Chandler_Compelling_V ision.htm

The primary idea here is that chandler will let you arrange your data in a way that is meaningful to ~you~ not in a preconceived view so to speak, such as the Outlook model.

Screenshot?

[Rai]

Is there one available? I couldn't find it on the website.

Re:Screenshot?

[rolfpal]

Here is a screenshot (big 1400 X 1050)

As far as I can see, it rocks.

Cheers,

Re: p2p vs. dedivated server

[Toy_O_Matic]

Actually Chandler is planned to be agnostic about p2p vs. dedicated server. You decide what works best for you. Hidden in the wiki there is this document with pretty pictures which dhows various deployment scenarios.

Downed Machines

[Tony]

I imagine the sender will queue them up and send them as soon as the client machine is turned back on.

Seems like The Right Thing to me, anyway.

Re:widget set...

[dilbert]

wxWindows has been ported to GTK2 and is already nearly as solid as the GTK1 port. wxPython can already be built with wxGTK2 but it is not the default until a few remaining issues are ironed out.

Re:oooh yay!

[cscx]

Yeah, I'm hoping someone can write another version of biff or maybe an MP3 player.

Something that's missing from almost every PIM

[symbolic]

For some reason, the idea that someone might want to journal events as they occur throughout the day seems to have escaped most of the PIM software authors. The prevailing model seems to be that every event is planned, has a date, a start time, and an end time. In many cases, though, it's far more appropriate to be able to log events that aren't planned, but that have just happened - as with an impromptu meeting or a telephone conversation. I'm looking forward to the day when this actually appears in something like KOrganizer...maybe the Chandler folks can get a jump on this.

Re:Something that's missing from almost every PIM

[ReindeerBeer]

In Outlook there is a Journal features somewhere that can log your word files that you edit and things like that. This is journaling to the extent that you are talking about, but it is a start. Unfortunatly, it's buried somewhere in the config (I don't remember where it is) and is a bitch to set up. I wouldn't be surprised if MS has forgotten about it and it dissapears.

Is Mitch a strict Creationist?

[Dagmar d'Surreal]

I have to wonder if possibly Mitch Kapor is a strict Creationist and has the word "Evolution" being filtered at his home router or something.

Palm support.

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

Unless a PIM syncs with a Palm Pilot, I can't and won't even look at it.

clients easier than servers?

[goon]

150 KLOC+18 programmers+gnu license=few$$$
i remember reading this in an interview with miguel about Evolution. Sounds like it was such a financial drain their next plugin to connect to exchange was closed source for $$$.

Evolution

[drpickett]

Geez, I kinda like using Evolution - Guess I am not l33t enough - I like the idea of writing applications that break dependency upon Windoze - Open source tax preparation would have been nice a month ago

Re:Something to See

[Bob Uhl]

As much as I like Jabber I still use ICQ, YM, AIM & MSN to communicate with all of my friends.

You do realise that there are Jabber interfaces to those, right? Thus, you could have one free Jabber client up rather than four proprietary clients.

Finally, requiring people to compile software is not a usability plus.

Why not? What's so different between `always click on setup.exe' vs. `always type ./configure && make && sudo make install'? The advantage one gets is a bit of software customised for one's chip, OS, libraries and other software. It's Not That Big a Deal.

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