A Flexible Object Merging Framework

The need to merge different versions of an object toa common state arises in collaborative computing due to several reasons including optimistic concurrency control, asynchronous coupling, and absence of access control. We have developed a flexible object merging framework that allows definition of the merge policy based on the particular application and the context of the collaborative activity. It performs automatic, semi-automatic, and interactive merges, supports semanticsdetermined merges, operates on objects with arbitrary structure and semantics, and allows fine-grained specification of merge policies. It is based on an existing collaborative applications framework and consists ofa merge matrix,which defines merge functions and their parameters and allows definition of multiple merge policies, and a merge algorithm, which performs the merge based on the results computed by the merge functions. In conjunction with our framework we introduce a set of merge policies for several us...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1994
• Where: CSCW
• Authors: Jonathan P. Munson, Prasun Dewan
• Keywords: CSCW 1994, Defines Merge Functions, Merge Functions, Merge Policies, Social Sciences