Am 22.01.2018 um 21:50 schrieb Valeri Galtsev galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu:
Dear All,
Three groups of scientists need to write documents collaboratively. They are going to use MS PowerPoint, Word, also store PDF files. They want to be able to add external people from other groups they collaborate with and give them access to some areas or "projects". In other words, they want some collaborative work environment, mostly to work on documents.
In the past scientists were using TeX, and one of version control systems (CVS, subversion,...). And all was great, as TeX files (pretty much like programs software developers write) are ASCII text files, and diff of two version is rather small...
Unlike the past scientists I work for plan to use MS PowerPoint, Word, also store PDF files. All these are effectively binary files for version control systems, then versions will not be stored as a small diff, but each version ends up being the whole document.
One obvious solution may be: just buy office365.com http://office365.com/ service, or set up MS server on our own machine. And these are the two things I am trying to avoid.
Could someone recommend open source software? Some collaborative suite focused mostly on working on documents, with web based interface.
I run owncloud server for my Department, and one in general can use that, but I hope to find something more focused towards collaborative work.
Thanks a lot for your advises and pointers.
Well, there’s Collabra Online - https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-online/ https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-online/ - but I think it just allows you to edit documents on the browser. It can’t really allow two people editing the same document at the same time and then merge it - something that AFAIK Sharepoint can do. At least, I was under the impression that it can do that.
You can download their CODE VM and check it out.
For just file-sharing, there’s also SeaFile.
But I see they also integrate with Collabra these days…. https://www.seafile.com/en/features/
For project management, there’s stuff like Project Open (http://www.project-open.com http://www.project-open.com/ ) - but you have to see for yourself if it fits your use-case.
Good luck and keep us updated about what you ended up doing.