Informant38

For more than a year, Kapor and his small team have been working on what they're calling an open-source ``Interpersonal Information Manager.''

The software is being designed to securely handle personal e-mail, calendars, contacts and other such data in new ways, and to make it simple to collaborate and share information with others without having to run powerful, expensive server computers.

As with other open-source software, the source code (programming instructions) will be freely available along with the working program. An early version of the calendar part of the software should be posted on the Web by the end of this year, and version 1.0 of the whole thing is slated for the end of 2003 or early 2004.

Code-named ``Chandler'' after the late mystery novelist Raymond Chandler, the software will run on the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Initially, it will be aimed at individuals and small businesses, but it's also being designed as a platform upon which other developers can build useful software and services of their own.