[CentOS] Document/collaboration server advise needed

Mon Jan 22 20:50:59 UTC 2018
Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at 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 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.

Valeri

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Valeri Galtsev
Sr System Administrator
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
University of Chicago
Phone: 773-702-4247
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