Cloning Basecamp - how hard would it be....

3stripe

I'm talking about http://www.basecamphq.com... the project management app. It's a great tool but you can't buy it outright, it's always hosted by 37signals. I'm sure there's lots of people who would like to be able to tinker with it to suit there own needs - but you can't. So how hard would it be to recreate Basecamp? See http://wisdump.com/business/being-37signals-for-free/ for a good article along the same lines... The component parts are deceptively simple - message threads with comments, ajaxy to-do list, a calendar, multiple login accounts, file uploads - but I still guess it would be pretty hard to put these together into a stable package. Thoughts? Could you use any Lussumo parts as a groundwork? Or do a simplified version?

Minisweeper

Probably much more difficult than it first appears but not that difficult (compared to, say, spending 2 years developing vanilla from the ground up with changing ideas all the time). How much time and knowledge have you got?

3stripe

None! :) I have pondered if you could heavily customise a Wordpress install to give you some of the features.

giginger

You could probably cobble something together with all the free scripts out there and a good knowledge of PHP.

Thomas Heath

3stripe - I think an opensource easy-to-use collaboration tool like this would be fantastic. I have looked for exactly this type of software for usage by the Swedish scout movement. Right now we are planning a camp with 25000+ kids and there's a lot of cooperation between geographically dispersed people. I've previously looked into both Basecamp and Writely, but they are both hosted an inflexible. Many online successes happen because developers realise the power of simplicity. I think Vanilla is one of the best examples, but also Google when its clean interface outcompetet its then bloated AltaVista-like rivals. A user-friendly, freeware collaboration tool would be a powerful tool for many charity/non-government organisations. Here's the chance to change the world for the better ;-)

3stripe

Simplicity is also a big part of the 37signals mantra. But they have a business plan at the end of the day, so they can't make anything that's opensource (although you can get a free account for any of their online apps :-) Sounds like a good idea though!

synthrabbit

I'd love for there to be more options. That would benefit everyone. Competition = good for consumers.

Also, if I've got a month or so without an ongoing project, I'm wasting $12/month.

jakob_r

two possibly related links:
15tags
GoPlan

3stripe

Nice links, cheers Jakob :) The whole lets-build-a-web-app-and-document-the-process-in-a-blog thing seems to be quite big at the moment. (Carson Systems are doing it at http://www.barenakedapp.com/ for example). Can't get more transparent than that! Hmm. If Wordpress had a to-do list plugin already, I would be very tempted to try and do something using Wordpress as a framework. But it doesn't. And I'm not a programmer.

emergent

You guys should take a look at http://www.factorynova.com. I'm currently in the beta and it is a very cool PM app. (Sign up for the beta here, if you're interested - http://blog.stuffedguys.com/2006/05/25/factory-nova-is-in-beta)

3stripe

"Finally, the product had to integrate effortlessly in our existing workflow — for example, we didn't want our customers to study a new web interface if they didn't want to, they could just send an email with a query to our mailbox and it could be processed automatically and stored inside a relevant project."

Liking the sound of that...