Chandler, release 0.1

April 23, 2003 6:27 AM

ChandlerRelease 0.1, the open source Outlook clone is now available. This piece of software was developed by the Open Source Applications Foundation. "While we're still very early in the design and implementation process, we intend for this 0.1 release to make us a more fully open project." says Mitch Kapor.
posted by riffola (10 comments total)

I use Evolution, which is more stable and is a helluva lot nicer looking.
posted by PenDevil at 6:54 AM on April 23, 2003

The problem here is not the frontend but more an OSS replacement for the Exchange server.

It'll never happen - simply because Exchange is a huge and complicated beast and because writing something like that is neither sexy or particulary interesting.
posted by ralawrence at 7:23 AM on April 23, 2003

"I use Evolution, which is more stable and is a helluva lot nicer looking."

More stable than a 0.1 release? Wow.
posted by m@ at 7:37 AM on April 23, 2003

anyone else use either of them?
posted by kv at 7:46 AM on April 23, 2003

Evolution really is great, it looks like Outlook, feels like Outlook, and can connect to an Exchange server (this function is not free), however, it doesnt run on Windows/Mac, and doesnt have its own server (last time i checked).

Chandler is more ambitious, it plans on having its own server, being cross-platform, and being totally free/open source etc. From the FAQ "[In the 2.0 release]...we will focus on building Chandler to support third-parties who will market the products for the mainstream..."

It looks like a very ambitious project, but its still probably too early on to make a judgement about. Personally, I am very interested in the standalone email client from Mozilla (Thunderbird) and how it evolves.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 8:56 AM on April 23, 2003

The lack of a OS X native version of Outlook is one of the things (OS X Xpress being the other) keeping us from being able to move all of our users off of OS 9 Mac. Anyone running this?
posted by thirteen at 12:31 PM on April 23, 2003

Supposedly there won't be an OS X native version of Outlook.

But it's functionality will be included in the next version of Entourage v.X.
posted by Fofer at 4:46 PM on April 23, 2003

I've switched to InDesign 2 and use Entourage for email. All of the apps that I use daily for work are OS X native. I'm very happy with both InDesign and OS X.
posted by D.C. at 5:16 PM on April 23, 2003

It'll never happen - simply because Exchange is a huge and complicated beast and because writing something like that is neither sexy or particulary interesting.

If it's huge and complicated, then it's guaranteed to be interesting to somebody. Programmers love challenges. Nobody wants to write the same program twice; once you've solved the puzzle, it's time to find something bigger and tougher. All it needs is a kernel: someone to get it going, build the architecture, and fill in enough of the skeleton that newcomers can easily find a piece for themselves. IBM could do it, or one of the other corporations that have been investing in open source software lately.

thirteen: Outlook Express is one of the reasons I haven't switched to OS X - I'm not about to *pay* for Entourage, and I don't particularly like Apple's mail client.
posted by Mars Saxman at 6:28 PM on April 23, 2003

I am very happy with Evolution. The virtual folder feature in particular is a godsend. (Basically, instead of sorting your messages into separate folders, you can leave the whole lot in your inbox and define "virtual folders" that contain a subset of your inbox, based on a search or some other criterion. That way you can search and sort across all your mail and have built-in "views" that maybe intersect.)

Now that you can plug external commands into Evolution's mail processing rule engine, it's become as useful as mutt (which I still use when I only have a shell).

It seems to me that there isn't necessarily a conflict between evolution and chandler. Maybe I will be happy connecting Evolution to a Chandler server, just as I used to use Entourage to connect to a company Exchange server via IMAP. Except if Chandler's really open, it'll be even better.

*ahem* if D'Icaza's plan for Gnome development to transition to C# on Mono comes to fruition, then maybe one day Evolution WILL run on Windows and OSX.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:59 PM on April 23, 2003