Came here from joelonsoftware.com. I've been sort of fascinated by dotproject since I saw your posts about integrating it with Mantis, which I use, and SugarCRM, which is so slick I have to exert willpower to remind myself that as a consultant tools like Palm Desktop and my Palm organizer are more appropriate to what I do.

You miss the biggest missing feature in dotproject: quality printing of Gantt charts. I can happily track projects in a spreadsheet, but project management software is indispensable for making charts for proposals and progress reports.

I'm pretty skeptical of the utility of the "collaborative" features of dotproject, too. It smells like: "hey everybody, if everyone pitches in to do my job, it'll be so much easier for me!"

The default workflow really ought to be oriented towards SHARING the schedule with the "front line", not towards getting them to help maintain it.

Further, features that small offices and contractors actually use, like printing high-quality Gantt charts, should take precedence over whiz-bang line-item feature parity with mid-range and high-end commercial software. Look at Kidasa's sales material some time, their WHOLE focus is presentation charts.

Still, it's neat stuff and I might someday find myself using it!