“Last Monday, the Open Source Applications Foundation reached an
important milestone. It posted some software code on the Internet
and invited programmers around the world to offer suggestions and
improvements.“The posting was an early–very early–version of ‘Chandler,’
the code name for an open-source personal information manager,
e-mail and calendar program. The project and the foundation
(www.osafoundation.org) are the brainchild of Mitch Kapor, a key
figure in the personal-computer industry, and a talented group of
other people who want to create a new, unfettered platform for
innovation.“They hit another, less-noticed milestone at the end of March,
when the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (www.mellon.org) awarded the
project a $98,000 grant. The money is being used to see if
Chandler–currently aimed at individuals and smaller
businesses–can work on a much larger scale, serving the needs of
huge universities…”