[JDEV] ideas for multi-user text editing

Daniel Eschle d.eschle at web.de
Sun Dec 15 18:20:39 CST 2002


I recently encountered jabber and I am fascinated by the many possibilities 
beside instant messaging. Working me through the docs I saw JEP-0058 which is 
about multi-user text editing. I am thinking of a collaborative hypertext 
environment for which the jabber protocol seems to me perfect to build on. 
This system could be made up of the following components extending JEP-58:

1. protocol enabling several people to edit the same document (text, xml, 
xhtml,...) (http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0058.html)

2. XML based access-control protocol, which manages e.g. read, write, delete, 
create permissions on per element basis for users and groups.
   e.g. like XACL (http://www.trl.ibm.com/projects/xml/xacl/xacl-spec.html)

3. revision control for undo changes (e.g. CVS) and a jabber revision protocol 
for undoing and requesting recent changes.

4. hyperlinks to navigate through documents like in html (XLink).

5. metadata for annotations (like annotea in amaya) based on rdf and XPointer. 
(http://www.w3.org/2001/Annotea/)

6. metadata on who is viewing/editing the same doc

This collaboration system would be a writable web like a wiki but with more 
possibilities like access-control, chat, annotations...
It also would include all features of current jabber clients, and thus e.g. 
enables chatting with people who are currently viewing/editing the same 
document.

I am new to jabber and would be interested to know if something like this is 
possible with jabber, or maybe some points like access-control. What do you 
think about it? Does something similar already exist?
I would be interested in working on this, maybe someone else as well?

Daniel





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