Collaborative Academic Writing Software?

Thomas M Hughes writes "Despite its learning curve, LaTeX is pretty much the standard in academic writing. By abstracting out the substance from the content, it becomes possible to focus heavily on the writing, and then deal with formatting later. However, LaTeX is starting to show its age, specifically when it comes to collaborative work. One solution to this is to simply pair up LaTeX with version control software (such as Subversion) to allow multiple collaborators to work on the same document at one time. But adding Subversion to the mix only seems to increase the learning curve. Is there a way to combine the power of LaTeX with the power of Subversion without scaring off a non-technical writer? The closest I can approximate would be to have something like Lyx (to hide the learning curve of LaTeX) with integrated svn (to hide the learning curve of svn). However, this doesn't seem available. Google Docs is popular right now, but Docs has no support for LaTeX, citation management, or anything remotely resembling decent formatting options. Are there other choices out there?"

Comments

Re:Gobby to the rescue (Yes, this is Offtopic)

[causality]

Gobby collaborative editor + LaTeX. It would literally be a living document!

It would be what dishonest people keep trying to turn the Constitution into in order to justify their desire for state power?

I know that isn't what you were getting at. I'm being somewhat facetious but I do have a point.