The Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF), which he started in 2001 to investigate the possibility of developing a modern Personal Information Manager (PIM) using open source tools and methods, has already established a core team of nearly 20 engineers who have created the initial architecture, design, and core code for a 21st century PIM code-named "Chandler" after the great detective novelist Raymond Chandler.

The core team at OSAF works with the open source community through the development and release of the product - currently it is up to 0.2 - and Chandler has already attracted an interested and knowledgeable community of people which has made significant contributions to the project.

In the Japanese article, Kapor says that, in these economically hard time for software startups, he thinks that the open source style of development is the only way to develop innovative applications today.

He also talks about IBM and Apache. While IBM doesn't of course own Apache it derives revenue from things running on it; thus Apache is so important for IBM, just as it derives revenue from software running on Windows/IIS. In other words, there's no great difference between Apache (open source) and IIS (proprietary) - both of them are just platforms.

In the future, Kapor continues, both companies and users will benefit from open source. If someone wants to get rich by starting a new software company in an area where open source projects already exist, he will fail, says Kapor. They'll have to find a space where no one has gone before, just as Kapor believes he is doing with Chandler.

He walks his talk: at the OSAF site there are no fewer than six open software engineering positions listed!

• Lotus Founder Mitch Kapor: "It's Just a Matter of Time" Before Open Source Prevails

• Open Source Application Foundation