History-based reintegration of replicated shared workspaces

Replication of shared workspaces is often required for continuous work during decoupled connectionless phases. In distributed cooperative teams, the decoupled phases are mainly long and should be supported by an optimistic strategy which guarantees unlimited concurrent work by allowing different modifications on each replica. This approach leads to inconsistent versions which must be transformed into a single version during reintegration before coupled work begins. This paper describes the basic mechanisms and the realization of a generic MARC (Merge And Resolve Conflicts) component providing history-based reintegration. The component uses operations on an object-oriented data model and defines conflicts in terms of operations as representation of inconsistencies. The conflict resolution is supported by a conflict detection, a template-based presentation, an interactive decision selection and the execution of correction operations. Furthermore, conflict dependencies and anomalies of conflicts with directed links are handled generically by an adaptation of decision options in special situations.