Workgroup middleware for distributed projects

We have developed a middleware framework for workgroup environments that can support distributed software development and a variety of other application domains requiring document management and change management for distributed projects. The framework enables hypermedia based integration of arbitrary legacy and new information resources available via a range of protocols, nor necessarily known in advance to us as the general framework developers not even to the environment instance designers. The repositories in which such information resides may be dispersed across the Internet and/or an organizational intranet. The framework also permits a range of client models for user and tool interaction, and applies an extensible suite of collaboration services, including but not limited to multi-participant workflow and coordination, to their information retrievals and updates. That is, the framework is interposed between clients, services and repositories thus “middleware”. We explain how our framework makes it easy to realize a comprehensive collection of workgroup and workflow features we culled from a requirements survey conducted by NASA