Forby: Providing Groupware Features Relying on Distributed File System Event Dissemination

Intensive research and development has been conducted in the design and creation of groupware systems for distributed users. While for some activities, these groupware tools are widely used, for other activities the impact in the groupware community has been smaller and can be improved. One reason for this fact is that the mostly common used applications do not support collaborative features and users are reluctant to change to a different application. In this paper we discuss how available file system mechanisms can help to address this problem. In this context, we present Forby, a system that allows to provide groupware features to distributed users by combining filesystem monitoring and distributed event dissemination. To demonstrate our solution, we present three systems that rely on Forby for providing groupware features to users running unmodified applications.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: CRIWG
• Authors: Pedro Sousa, Nuno M. Preguiça, Carlos Baquero
• Keywords: CRIWG 2007, CRIWG 2009, Distributed Users, Groupware, Groupware Features