Star Gazing to V4...

What would a next generation of Groove look like?

The starting point has to be a mind-map of spaces. Instead of this current linear listing & folders the whole concept has to become more intuitive. The mind does not work in a linear way, so why enforce that!

It then needs to break the "space" apart. It needs to move more towards a more flexible and granular container & object model within the space. This needs to be done both graphically and in its security model.

A rectangle on screen in which may be the results of a database query whose results are only editable or even vieweable depending on "object membership". And perhaps another rectangle dedicated to presence awareness. All organised according to the way the project requires it - not according to how some developer / designer wants it limited - a page-design layout.

The granularity of its security must drop down to the object as well. With the ability to add new objects in to that secure zone according to the project needs.

Making the security drop down to an object rather than the current rigid concept of a space will significantly reduce and optimize bandwidth. For example, will people no longer have to copy PDFs et al from one space to another, they will just embed that PDFs own secure zone in to another secure zone. This will imply no breach of security, it will allow greater and more flexible distribution of the object (eg PDF) into other relevant containers.

And talking of bandwidth, once the above improvement is in place then p2p bandwidth performance enhancers such as bit-torrent can be applied to dramatic effect since the pool of computers from which a given object can be obtained from grows exponentially. Whereas right now Groove can only fetch from a limited number of computers, perhaps only 2 or 3 in many cases.

This above change will extend the reach of space membership. Instead of being limited to some nominal number such as 50, 100 or perhaps 200, now a space may contain up to 1000 and beyond members with little effort.

And finally Groove needs to come out of the dark - it needs, optionally to be able to integrate with HTTP, FTP, SMTP and other protocols as a feature. Right now there are add-ons, for example there is Groove+Outlook integration, though in PopG today we favour AvantMail. RSS-feed integration is possible. One goal is to be able to look at all the pull and push points and ensure there is no wastage of development effort since many of these involve developer partners.

The extensible Forms tool needs continuing and substantial development to become the front-end for all data manipulation. If it is any good (and it is) then it needs to become a powerhorse of the GUI. That means it has to be able to deal with all the layout issues possible. And of course the developer community has to be "there" in understanding the next generation of the tool.

In truth the currrent architecture, which I believe is a phenomenal acheivement is also holding back the performance, extenstibility and usability - and that's what Groove 4's agenda should aim to deliver on.