Hula is a new OpenSource "non-groupware" mail/calendaring server project essentially based on Novell's NetWare. The project aims to be an Open Source version of GMail, concentrating predominantly on offering a sexy UI rich in JavaScript/DHTML.
Funny thing is, after tinkering with XMLHttpRequest, I've been thinking about redoing IlohaMail with a GMail-style DHTML interface myself. So what does Hula mean for IlohaMail2? Fortunately, Hula and a DHTMLized IlohaMail have similar goals, but vastly different target markets. From what I can tell, Hula is written in C and includes a dedicated web server. This means:
In short, while Hula has great potential in the enterprise market, there's still going to be a demand for "GMail for the rest of us". With a little work, I think I can get IlohaMail to fill in that gap. (Actually, it'll be more than just "a little" work; I've spent the last day or two cleaning up and modularizing crappy old code just to get to the point where I can spit out a list of messages in XML without duplicating code...but it's fully doable, and just about all the code is reusable.)
Finally, an apparently crazy but actually very insightful comment on writing software, from JWZ:
"How will this software get my users laid" should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is social software).
"Social software" is about making it easy for people to do other things that make them happy: meeting, communicating, and hooking up.
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