Status Update Number 9 � September 25, 2003

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Chandler Design and Development

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I. *Official 0.2 Release � Released September 25, 2003

See the Chandler Wiki page for the most current information on the purpose for the 0.2 release. (You can download the 0.2 release here: http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Chandler/GettingChandler )

We'll be chatting about this release at our weekly IRC "office hours" on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 11am Pacific time. Check out the IRC ChatSchedule for details.

Our 0.2 release is an architectural release, where we focus on building Chandler as a platform before moving the focus to end-user functionality and features next year. For more detail see revisions to the Product Road map and Chandler Time Line. The 0.2 release was triggered by the clock as opposed to any functional or feature milestone. We want to show that we are making progress at regular intervals even though we might not have the loose ends all tidied up. We're not trying to make this release look pretty; that will come later.

The 0.2 release of Chandler is still very skeletal in functionality, with very few obvious differences to the end-user from the 0.1 release. However, there are some major changes in the underlying framework and architecture. Our framework is by no means complete, but 0.2 shows a solid start on several of our major framework areas. There has been significant work in the following that you may want to review:

• Data Model and Repository: The 0.2 release implements a very flexible Data Model that allows a full spectrum of data representations, from loosely structured to highly structured. Data schemas can be defined in and imported from XML and saved in our Repository. The schemas can be very flexible -- much more flexible than the traditional columnar schema of relational databases. All of the major Chandler parcels now use the new data model, including the repository viewer.
• Notification Framework: The notification manager provides a publish and subscribe mechanism for various parts of Chandler to communicate high level events. The ZaoBao parcel offers an example of how the notification framework is used to notify the Viewer Parcel of updates in an RSS feed.
• Agent Framework: The Agent Framework is partially implemented in the .2 release. The underlying machinery for defining agents that automatically respond to conditions as they arise is present, but there's no user interface yet. There are two test agents: one that automatically approves any Jabber subscription request, and one that does something special if a "Professional" Contact with an occupation of "Dentist" is created.
• Chandler Presentation and Interaction Architecture (CPIA): The rudimentary beginnings of a novel presentation and interaction framework are now in Chandler. See the Document parcel for an example.
• Improved Code Development Features: In particular we have added support for WingIDE and other features to make debugging a parcel easier.

II. Help Us!

Brian Skinner is maintaining a Help Us! page on the Chandler Wiki. This page is for small, self-contained, projects with clear deliverables which would help OSAF enormously.

At the moment, most of these projects are likely to be information-gathering exercises. At some point, we expect that we'll also have small coding projects. Right now the projects include:

• I18n Input Methods
• XSL transform
• Repository Viewer
• Item Editor Parcel^?
• RDF Parcel
• Bugzilla Parcel
• Schema Viewer Parcel
• Observable Queries Prototype

III. Information: new information and updates about Chandler.

Recent new or updated wiki pages of note:

1. Public Events Schedule
2. CPIA - A detailed document describing the Chandler Presentation and Interaction Architecture (CPIA) Formerly known as the document architecture.
3. Stuff of interest regarding 0.2 Code Development Features
4. How to run Chandler in a debugger.
5. Information about the Repository Viewer parcel - designed to help developers debug their data schema and Repository code.
6. We keep track of where the Chandler system builds or doesn't.
   • The first table describes which platform/compiler combinations can build. Each combination (row) is given a "build name" which identifies that combination.
   • The second table lists which builds run on which platforms.
7. Data Model Stuff - we're beginning to get some traction here...
   • Nexus for all the pages that talk about the Chandler data model.
   • info about project management related to the Data Model Project
   • Data Model Developer Guide
   • Data Model FAQ
   • some background "vision" documents that describe the high level goals for Chandler
   • summary of the features we're talking about having in the data model, and the open issues we still need to resolve, as of September 2003.
8. Email stuff
   • Listing the absolute bare minimum email features in Chandler
   • Dependencies between email features to figure out which email features should go into which release(s).
9. Daily IRC chat logs from 5/22/2003 to present. If you want to participate/lurk in real time see: How to join the Chandler IRC channel.
10. Important Higher Ed IT Projects related to Chandler.

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OSAF Organization

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IV. New Staff at OSAF

Building out the OSAF development staff is a high priority right now. We plan to add half a dozen engineers in the next three months. Open positions are listed on the OSAF website Employment page.

We are pleased to announce two new staff members who joined us this month, Heikki Toivonen - Development Manager and Stuart Parmenter - Software Engineer.

Heikki is part of our development management team, with a focus on security and external development. His first task is to plan our coordination and participation with the wxWindows project. Stuart will be focusing on implementing agents and the agent infrastructure.

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Miscellaneous activities

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V. Chandler Ecosystem

Since one of Chandler's primary features is the sharing of information we assume that it will be used in an environment with other applications and devices from handhelds to servers. This ecosystem needs to be studied to see how Chandler might best interoperate with these 'foreign' data sources. We have started a Chandler Ecosystem project to research important competitive and collaborative products and how they may impact Chandler users and user adoption. The goal of this effort is to help map out who the important external parties are and what they can offer to Chandler users and Chandler adoption. By understanding existing and future alternatives in the marketplace, we can better allocate resources by focusing on markets where Chandler is clearly differentiated.

(Note: For the purposes of this project, we are only concerned with external parties -- organizations, products or technologies -- that impact Chandler users and user adoption.) Thus, this study should have direct input to developing the following key tasks:

1. Partnership strategy leading to policies and template for external relationships
2. Feature prioritization based on TargetUseCases
3. Competitive Intelligence gathering
   • What differentiates Chandler?
   • What should Chandler not do (well-served by existing solutions)?
4. How can Chandler create new opportunities and support third parties

VI. Visitors

We occasionally meet with representatives from a variety of institutions with whom we feel it would be important to share information about our projects. Some of the recent meetings have included:

• uPortal - is an enterprise portal application jointly developed by a group of universities and private firms with financial support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As a presentation-oriented solution, uPortal essentially provides the �front end� for integrating diverse applications and content. Among other things, a uPortal-powered Web site can provide users with access to lecture notes, news and events information, grades, and single-sign-on to other web-based applications like email and course registration.
• HayStack - is an MIT project to make a platform for creating, organizing and visualizing personal information. It uses RDF as its primary data modeling framework. Haystack allows the user to easily manage his or her documents, e-mail messages, appointments, tasks, and other information.
• David Allen - author of the best-selling book, "Getting Things Done: the Art of Stress-Free Productivity" (Viking; 2001) and inventor of the productivity tool Actioneer's patented software model.
• wxWindows - is an open-source framework used by Chandler for cross-platform development, including GUIs, threads, sockets, database, and file system access. The core wxWindows team visited OSAF from Europe and spent the day working with the OSAF developers on syncing up priority development for wxWindows.

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drafted by -- PieterHartsook - 26 Sep 2003