Small correction: “open source” and “freeware” are two completely different things. To be completely pedantic, it's “freely-available under the terms of the three-clause BSD-style license”.

Either way, though, congratulations to Ben! Hopefully now that it's open we can get it ported to WebDAV servers that don't require running a JVM :)

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Now - someone just needs to figure out how to get notMac to run on a hacked AppleTV - that'll be the ultimate solution because unlike some with lavish amounts of money to throw at a dedicated server someplace, a $449 AppleTV is much more affordable! :)

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And I thought I'd have to make a server the long and hard way (which would be fun, but I don't have time)

Thanx and congrats on the win.

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Sweet, for the mere cost of another Mac, I can have a poor imitation of .Mac!

Thanks, but I'll gladly spend my $99/yr for a far superior solution.

You get what you pay for.

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"because unlike some with lavish amounts of money to throw at a dedicated server someplace"

Who needs to do that? My server for the past 2 years has been a blue & white G3 450 with a gig of ram and 10.4 Server to host my domain. It's been a workhorse.
I've just recently replaced it with a G4 Cube (450) for $250.

People don't realize that servers spend 99% of their time doing absolutely nothing. You really don't need something extravagant as a server. Any old mac will do, as long as it can hold enough ram. (I wouldn't go any older than a B&W G3. For Leopard, I'd say a decent G4 tower should be just fine)

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With the Mac mini, it doesn't take a lot of money to get a colocated Mac server going.

http://www.macminicolo.net

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This will not be usefull more 90% of mac users. Until they come up with a solution that doesnt need a server or someone ports the server software to linux

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the one thing that absolutely can't be replicated is the @mac.com address. Honestly, that's the whole reason I'll be sticking with .Mac for pretty much ever.

I may have changed phone numbers a dozen times since college, but my email address will always stay the same, for as long as I can manage it. Free would be nice, but honestly, I'd rather have that constant line of communication with folks I've known forever.

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@Mo - the BSD licence used is an open-source licence (and is OSI approved), so it is indeed both free and open-source, pedantic or not!

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My .Mac membership is expiring in 27 days and this time I will not be renewing. Everything .Mac has to offer (even with this year's updates) can now be replicated for free. This new NotMac winner just puts the cherry on top of the sundae:

IMAP Mail: Fastmail.fm for a fraction of the cost.
Backup: soon to be replaced by Time Machine
Sync: NotMac winner
Picture Gallery / Groups: Facebook
Online bookmarks: Del.icio.us + Safarilicious
10GB iDisk: I never filled up more than 500MB of my iDisk, and there's plenty of free or low cost alternatives out there.

When I first signed up for .Mac, a lot of the features were good and tailored for new users. But $400 later I think it's time to upgrade to something cheaper and more advanced.

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Hear, hear for the Mac Mini. I got mine (used - er, I mean conscientiously recycled) on eBay for $220 and set it up as a server last week. NotMac timing could not be better.
If you want to take the same path, this was a helpful series for me:
http://www.freemacblog.com/category/server-video-series/

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By the way, the installer download link at the top of the page that the TUAW link above goes to (whew!) has a typo, an uncapitalized "n". Here is a working link to download the installer:
http://www.notmacchallenge.com/NotMac.dmg

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Maxwell, was yours a G4 or an Intel? If it was in Intel, man, my G4 Mini isn't worth selling any more, I might as well make it do more server stuff :)

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Like many others, I don't have a spare Mac laying around and am not planning to buy one, to run 24 hours a day, just for the sake of syncing my Addressbook and Bookmarks...

I would strongly urge to find a solution via one's web domain server. I think there are far more people who are maintaing a personal website, and thus have surely some space left on their host server... THAT would be solution!!

Lean Back and Relax - Enjoy some Nature Photography

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@VanillaSpice: Yes, it's free, but it's not *freeware*—freeware is something completely different to open source (generally meaning “no source or redistribution rights, but doesn't cost anything”)

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Tse.... how does it work with the URL Links?! Second try, sorry...

Lean Back and Relax - Enjoy some Nature Photography:
http://photoblog.la-famille-schwarzer.de/

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Well, I like the goal of this project, and I'm happy to see that someone won the grand prize.
However, I do have a problem ; don't take this the wrong way, it probably isn't related, but I think it's important to signal it.
The AppleShare server (AFS) on my mac mini failed yesterday, just one day after I tried out notMac. I don't know if it's really related, but it's a very serious failure that I was only able to repair by restoring a previous backup, so be really cautious...
Backup your data before trying out notMac, and check that the Apple File Sharing component still works after trying.
Again, notMac may not be the cause of this failure ; I tried auto-syncing my (real, apple) iDrive the same day, and I did other stuff too.

Cheers,
David.

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Well, I had a solution for this "contest" long ago. You just needed to have a spare server farm, a team of Arctic sled Dogs and 2 dozen Google Engineers at your disposal.

I call shenanigans.

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I don't think most people will run their own server. But I think some enterprising minds (probably the dude who started the contest) will offer commercial .Mac alternatives for a reasonable price.

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The great thing about Apple's .mac is the seamless integration with iLife and the fact that you don't have to have seperate email, flickr, youtube, webhost, etc. accounts. You sign up for one service and everything is provided in an easy to use pre-configured way w/ FULL iLife integration.

I'm willing to bet that with this someone (maybe the winner) will create a "real" dot mac commercial alternative that combines email, photos, videos, web hosting into one package, but I doubt that it'll be as easy to use and stylish as Apple's.

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