I was devastated when I learned “I Want Sandy” was going the way of the carrier pigeon. This now-defunct site was the first and only calendar service that worked the way I wanted it to. Rael Dornfest, CEO of Values of n, Inc., was apparently hired by Twitter, which acquired I Want Sandy and Stikkit, then shut them down. (Acquisition seems to be a regular approach to extinction. Just as Pownce users how they feel about the xxx acquisition and subsequent shutdown.)

Searching for an alternative led me to Get Satisfaction, where 17 people responded to another Sandy fan looking for a comparable service. I’ve looked at most of those that were recommended (Remember the Milk, Reqall, Deadline, GoPingMe, Vitalist), and none of them did what I wanted.

Then I noticed one answer that echoed my own feelings and added, “Maybe the open source Sandy will take off. I hope so.”

Open source?

I followed the link to “Sandy’s Back,” a blog chronicling early attempts to resusciate Sandy in an open-source version. It’s not the first time someone has developed an open-source version of commercial software. If you have your own server, you can run a Basecamp clone. But this is the first time I can recall that an open-source initiative was launched to recreate a free service no longer available.

So far, it looks like six people are contributing to the effort, which currently is looking for interested individuals to share the features they’d like to see:

it’s very important for us to have a clear picture of what your priorities are as users. So keep giving us feedback on your favorite features, and also don’t be shy requesting new features because it will be a lot of fun for us to expand Sandy’s skill set.

No doubt we’ll be seeing more of this as services popular with a small group fail for one reason or another. In the meantime, this team can’t possibly work fast enough for me!