ACM Technews Snippet [1]
Rob Weir
rweir at softhome.net
Sun Jan 5 15:34:28 EST 2003
On Sat, Jan 04, 2003 at 08:12:19AM +1100, Steve Jenkin wrote:
> Summary: http://www.acm.org/technews/articles/2002-4/1227f.html#item12
> URL:
> http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/globe_story.html?uri=/dailyglobe2/354/business/Sharing_the_riches-.shtml
>
> "Sharing the Riches"
> Boston Globe (12/20/02) P. D1; Gaither, Chris
>
> Lotus founder Mitch Kapor is funding the nonprofit Open Source
> Applications Foundation (OSAF) that focuses on bringing open-source
> software to PC users in order to make information exchange more
> intuitive. OSAF's centerpiece is Chandler, a program that will be
> distributed for free download and will run on Windows, Apple, and
> Linux computers. Kapor wants the software to be an alternative to
> Microsoft Outlook groupware, and is pouring $5 million out of his own
> pocket into the Chandler effort. "I think it's wrong to characterize
> things that he's doing in competitive terms," explains software
> developer and VisiCalc creator Dan Bricklin. "Mitch and a lot of these
> developers are not competitive people, as much as they are creative
> people who want to build something different that people will use."
> Kapor's funding to the OSAF far exceeds that of other free software
> nonprofits, such as the Free Software Foundation. His $5 million is
> expected to last for about two years, after which the OSAF will
> hopefully be able to support itself through contributions and licensing
> fees to companies who use Chandler commercially. Rather than
> concentrating on stealing market share away from Microsoft, Kapor
> will focus on how well Chandler will attract users, lead to the creation
> of successful companies, and spur Microsoft to improve Outlook. The
> software is not expected to be released for at least another year.
That's actually kinda disappointing. Wow, yet another outlook clone,
but this time it's proprietary. I imagine spending five million on
getting Evolution up to scratch or that Kroupware thing would be a much
more worthwhile proposition. That's what, a good one hundred hackers
work full time for a whole year. What a waste.
-rob
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