Lotus 'Agenda' Returns as Open-Source 'Chandler'

RobotRunAmok writes "Before there was Outlook, or Evolution, or The Brain, there was Lotus Agenda, a DOS-based Personal Information Manager created by Mitch Kapor. Wired is reporting that Kapor is throwing 5 Million USD at the Open Source Applications Foundation to create an open-source resurrection of this PIM-Of-The-Gods in the form of Chandler, available now as an alpha for Windows, Linux, and Mac. For the Agenda hardcore among us, it's as though Atlantis is rising..."

Comments

Great

[slimjim8094]

It's good to see people using money to create open-source programs. There is some expectation of support and quality, and you still can modify it any way you want.

Aside from that, is this a better PIM than Evolution, or another? Why (other than the "oh, it's being redone") is this news? Was/is it revolutionary in some way? I have never used it.

Having said that, I think it's fascinating that the programs creator is using his own money to open-source it. Will we see more of this? I hope so.

Re:Great

[truthsearch]

From a developer's point of view it's a framework for networked apps. On top of the framework it's easier to write chat clients, email clients, RSS readers, etc. that are all connected in some way (e.g. email sender links to chat client).

From a user's point of view it can be an integration of all of your PIM applications. Data from various sources can be viewed in a variety of ways. I think the idea is to create more open and dynamic ways of viewing and integrating the data. I think the developers are sort of hoping new ways of working with emails, RSS, and other data are invented as a byproduct.

Re:Great

[hb253]

Agenda was revolutionary in my view. It was not a PIM in the sense of an address book/email program. It was a freeform database that you could dump text data into and manipulate in ways only limited by your ability and imagination. To this day, there have been no programs released with Agenda-like functionality.

I would gladly pay for a modern version of Agenda.

Seems Newton-like

[TheRaven64]

The PIM I used in the DOS days was SideKick. The great thing about it was that it was a TSR; you could leave it running in the background and invoke it with a few keystrokes. It would then pop up on screen in front of the DOS application you were running, and then return you to your previous state afterwards. I never used the Windows version; once the OS was multitasking the killer feature had gone.

Reading the Wikipedia article about Agenda, it sounds very much like the PIM functionality of the Apple Newton, particularly the Agent. I wonder how inspired the Newton designers were by Agenda.

Re:Chandler has been out as an alpha for years...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

True. A couple of years ago there was a dearth of open source PIM software out there. Now there's quite a bit. For the AJAX-minded, there's server software like Citadel. For those who want a fat client, there really isn't anything better than Kontact, which really has come into its own with end-to-end PIM and groupware functions. Put the two together and you've really got an end-to-end solution.

How is this like Agenda?

[Chris.Nelson]

Aside from the Kapor tie-in? Agenda's key feature was that you could just take notes and it'd see, "Meet with Dave next Tuesday about project x" and it'd know which Dave based on the Project X team and when next Tuesday was based on today's date, etc. Then it'd categorize all your notes so you could ask it, "Show me Project X stuff" or "What appointments do I have today?" If this is just an alternative to Outlook - that is, calendar-oriented or whatever -- how is it Agenda-like?

Re:This Story is Three Years old

[grotgrot]

The reason for the "progress" so far is that the folks working at OSAF are all senior people, some already "independently wealthy". Consequently you get lots of high level design (or as Joel calls it, Architecture Astronauts) but not much actual real work.

Python is a good language for writing a standalone PIM. However I question the point of a standalone program.

Today you can't tell if email coming from Amazon.com is important unless you also have been watching my web browsing. If I was there in the last few days then I'd be excited about what is shipping to me. Conversely if I haven't been in years, then it is spam. A good PIM can only be worthwhile if it takes into all of your activities over time with whom you communicate and that must take into account web, blogs, mail etc. The problem today is not storing information, but making sense of it and working out which is more valuable and when.

Re:This Story is Three Years old

[TobascoKid]

Python would have been a good choice if they were going to rapidly develop Chandler - once they had a working app, they could go through and move parts to C/C++. So they could get Chandler out the door and conquoring the world quick, and then optimize later. But if they had rapidly developed Chandler, you would think they'd be working on version 2 by now. Seeing as the project is moving at glacial speeds with python, it makes one wonder if they would even have released version 0.1 by now if they were writing in C++.

Gmail and Zimbra

[tenchiken]

Honestly, This seems completly behind the time. The lesson of Gmail is that uses will accept less functionality in exchange for more universal access. Take a look at Zimbra if you want to see a real exchange killer.