Russell Beattie

I just saw that Chandler was released on Dan Gilmore's weblog:

For the first time, the Open Source Applications Foundation has publicly posted code for the "Chandler" project on its website. Note: It's version 0.1 at this stage.

This is a huge milestone, albeit a bit later than the OSAF folks had hoped.

Chandler, you'll recall, is the open-source "personal information manager for email, calendars, contacts, tasks, and general information management, as well as a platform for developing information management applications." (That's the description from the project site.)

Mitch Kapor, head honcho at OSAF, likens this release to a virtual ultrasound -- "not viable outside the womb." But it's an indication, he says, "that we've come a long way."

He hopes outside developers will surprise him with some great new code. Take a look, code wizards. Help us all out by helping with a vital project.

So I grabbed it and even though I know it's a super Alpha, I was definitely a bit disappointed. I mean, it downloaded and ran without problems, but the UI is a nightmare and a usability morass. I'm hoping they're doing a lot of work on the plumbing and will tidy up the UI later. They seem to be doing some cool stuff with Jabber which I thought was great, but in terms of functionality, there doesn't seem to be much right now.

All the code's there, though, so it'll be fun to root around and play... and it's a worthy cause, so maybe some Python wizards will dive in and get their hands dirty. (Please god let them be usability wizards as well).

-Russ