FOSS Multicast Document Sharing?

Jawdy writes "I am currently leading a small game development project with artists and developers scattered all over the country. Getting together is somewhat difficult, but we try to do this every couple of months. We often share all kinds of documents with each other, and even do so while using IM clients (GTalk and MSN), but this winds up being a tedious process of: send document; read and edit; send back; rinse and repeat. What I wanted to ask fellow slashdotters is, if anyone knows of any FOSS software that can handle IM (or even voice chat), Whiteboard and document sharing — where we can all see the document, pass around 'editing rights' and edit live. Even several small apps that handle the individual components would help out!"

Comments

Abiword

[Anonymous Coward]

Abiword has an experimental plugin to allow collaborative document editing. Otherwise, I'd suggest just using Google Docs.

Google Docs

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Google Docs?

It's not an F/OSS solution, but it supports ODT, DOC, and just about everything else, and allows for the cooperative editing that you're looking for.

Plus, you have the added advantage of not needing to host and upkeep some app.

Re:Google Docs

[johnkzin]

And, Google Docs also has a built-in "IM" feature. The "Discuss" tab on the right lets you see who is currently looking at the document, and IM each other right in that tab, for discussion/coordination/etc.

I'd highly recommend it. We recently used it on a spreadsheet for a planned data center power outage, with all of the sysadmins IM'ing at the same time, and all we would each mark the "up/down" collumn of the sheet as we finished with a bunch of machines (over 300 total). And we had one spot that was a counter for how many were still up or down. It also kept track of shutdown/start-up order, responsible sysadmin, and dependencies. Instead of being like a mad-house we've had in previous outages, this one was almost like a ballet. Very useful tool.

So, yes, Google Docs may not technically be "Open Source", but it is free, and I bet you'll find it to be amazingly useful for what you want.

Re:Google Docs

[master5o1]

nah nah mate... this is much better.

What kind of documents?

[Noksagt]

Google documents or Zoho or some other gratis (but typically proprietary) "cloud" solution might be reasonable.

If you're fine with text-only, you have a lot of options. VIM and EMACS both allow collaborative editing, you can share a screen session, or you can get a specialized collaborative editor (such as Gobby and ACE) or a specialized framework, such as DocSynch

If you need light-weight word processing, Abiword has a plugin for real-time collaboration.

Heavier weight word processing of DOCX can be done with Plutext.

If you need more graphical documents & the above doesn't seem to fit AND if you have a small group of friends who you trust, I'd just go "simple" & host with VNC or some other remote desktop protocol.

As far as other pieces, there is a lot of good F/OSS voice/IM/whiteboard software. Coccinella and ekiga are good examples.

OpenH323

[Zarhan]

OpenH323 is basically Netmeeting, but OSS version. Mind you, it uses (surprise) H.323 protocol, and not all firewalls like it (since it requires connectivity to both directions).

http://openh323.sourceforge.net/

Google docs is an easy first thing to try

[aachrisg]

I'd try google docs first. You can share live copies of documents (word processing files + spreadsheets), including keeping revision history and simultaneous live edits.

Document Sharing - Dropbox

[Compholio]

Well, for the "document sharing" and "editing rights" part you could use Dropbox.

Personally I would abstract this away from the app

[Froze]

For really simple interactivity, I would suggest something along the lines of

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vnc-reflector/

Let one person do the application hosting and get your committee to VNC to that host. Then everybody can do everything, including applications that don't have shared edit features built in.

Dabbleboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out Dabbleboard. It was written by a friend of mine. There is a video showing you how it works.

http://www.dabbleboard.com

Gobby

[siDDis]

Gobby is an open source client-server application which supports multiple documents in one session, document synchronisation on request, password protection and an IRC-like chat for communication.

Eclipse Communication Framework

[toby]

ECF is an integrated Jabber (XMPP)-based protocol that allows collaborative work. Introduction here. "Real-time communication and collaboration features for teams using Eclipse such as peer-to-peer file sharing, remote opening of Eclipse views, screen capture sharing, and real-time shared editing."

Other Jabber products you might find useful are Coccinella with whiteboarding, etc.

Microsoft SharedView

[figleaf]

One more alternative you can look at: SharedView. It works over the firewall unlike several other apps.

Inkscape

[molo]

This is only for whiteboarding (not document sharing), but Inkscape can share a workspace over XMPP (Jabber) protocol. The feature is sometimes called Inkboard.

More info here: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/WhiteBoard and here: http://inkboard.sourceforge.net/

-molo

iChat and SubEthaEdit

[RatPh!nk]

Very sweet solution if you have access to OS X. SubEthaEdit has very nice integration with iChat and will likely do much of what you ask right out of the box including multi-person live editing. Good luck

Re:iChat

[Foofoobar]

Well depends on your priority. For me, having a decent portable environment that was easily compatible with all environments was very crucial. Good development tools, easy communication amongst teammates, etc. If that is not a priority in the longrun, then yes, I'd say don't spend the money. It was my team mates that tipped me over to 'the Mac side' and I still run most of my FOSS tools on it (Eclipse, OpenOffice, Gimp, etc) but the communication and collaboration tools were DEFINITELY something that enabled me to telecommute and interact with my teammates like no other platform or software package allowed.

So, mark me as a troll (even though I'm stil saying that FOSS will replace this) but for now, this IS the best tool on the market that's FREE for collaboration. It just happens to be tied to the Mac OS.

Re:VCS

[Timothy Brownawell]

Google "revision control".

No, "collaborative editing". Revision control gives a tedious process of: commit document; update; read and edit; commit; rinse and repeat. Wikipedia says that Abiword and Google Docs (among others others) probably do what's asked for here.

KabLink

[Conficio]

You might have a look at http://kablink.org/ from the former SiteScape (now Novell). I'm not sure if their current open source offering includes the voice collaboration server. I think it used to. Also lots of collaboration tools, although id does not seem to include a collaborative white board in the FOSS version.

Assembla.com

[KristofferG]

Make an account at www.assembla.com it features everything you need. Supports: Direct filesharing, SVN, IM jabber server, Wiki, Scrum, Trac, Mercury aso Its without doubt the best alternative for low-budget or no-budget software development.

Parent post is NOT redundant.

[SenseiLeNoir]

Some Moderators seriously do NOT understand the use of the "redundant" modifier in answers to a "Ask Slashdot" topic.

The parent topinc is NOT redundant. It answers the topic, with a good answer (google docs) and brings some further information to the table (simultaneous live edits)

Although it sometimes can be annoying to see multiple posts with the same suggestion (similar to a "me too"). However in this case, if you look carefully you can see the parent post, and most others who suggested Google Docs, have all posted at the same time (around 8:22pm). It is therefore reasonable to assume that this is not intended to be a "me too" post. Therefore it is unfair to mark this as redundant.

Also take into account, the person who asked the question may be looking at popularity,a nd many people suggesting "google docs", together with WHY, may help that person make a better decision.

I hope the "redundant" mod given to the parent is properly meta moderated, as it is unfair.