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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: Collaborative editing / Versionning for koffice
From:       "Casper Boemann" <cbr () boemann ! dk>
Date:       2006-05-30 9:06:23
Message-ID: 027201c683c8$52f42e30$2890a8c0 () FK13045
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Just a quick note:

The merging approach, is a positive approach that assumes it goes well and 
as such doesn't have overhead unless actually editing the same element.

Also the merging approach doesn't require a server

I'm busy at work now so I have no time to argue more right now.

best regards
Casper Boemann

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cyrille Berger" <cberger@cberger.net>
To: <koffice-devel@kde.org>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 10:46 PM
Subject: Collaborative editing / Versionning for koffice


Hi all,

I want to start a discution about adding collaborative editing/versionning 
in
KOffice 2.x (note that x might be x >=1, but I had rather have x=0 even if
it's not feature complete and supported by all apps). As those two features
are closely related, I do think that we can provide support for both of them
at the same time. (And with the design about which I am thinking we might
even get some sort of ressource server for free ;) )

** Versionning
Versionning is part of proposed google soc, so I will let the student take
care of it, but there is a lot in common between versionning and
collaborative.

** Collaborative editing
The collaborative edition will need a small server, and I see at least two 
use
case, one involving working on a single document, and the other one need
collaboration between all koffice applications.

 - server
It needs to be gui independent (relying on QtNetworks but on nothing that
would bring an X dependency) and really easy to use, minimal configuration
should be required, a directory for where to save files and a port number
(something working like verse of the blender project
http://verse.blender.org/cms/Overview.573.0.html, possibly using it if I
understand how it is supposed to work)

 - work on a single document
there are two approaches, one involve looking (automaticaly or not) and the
other one use a powerfull algorithm to merge changes (like describe in An
Integrating, Transformation-Oriented Approach to Concurrency Control and 
Undo
in Group Editors by Ressel, Nitsche-Ruhland and Gunzenhäuser), I dislike the
second possibility, and there for I will let Casper defend it.

So for the first method, I will use the example of a document, for instance 
a
yearly report from a commercial team. The document is devided in chapter,
section, paragraph... Each one of them can be locked either because the
manager has given someone the responsability to work on that part or because
someone else is working on it and hasn't yet commit the changes.

 - multi-document work and sharing
The scenerio I have selected to demonstrate how it should work is the 
edition
of a newspaper, I think it would allow to demonstrate how I think we should
design collaborative work in koffice.
At the center of the creation of a newspaper is someone in charge of the
layout, he will need to receive the collaboration of everybody.
kword would be used by journalists to write articles.
Krita by people retouching pictures. Karbon/Kivio by people creating the 
nice
graphics we see on newspaper to explain a complex situation. And so on.

The contribution from everybody is shared through the server which will warn
the clients of the availability of an update. And the layout guy will have
the ability to see differences and agree to apply them, automaticaly 
updating
the newspaper.

-- 
--- Cyrille Berger ---
PS we might want a cool code name too ;P so that no one would understand 
about
what we are speaking ;)
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