The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Groove

Has anyone used Groove - their latest version? Can't I just use a Wiki with RSS support instead for free?

Am I missing something?

I have not used groove, but this is the inference I made from their website.

Prakash S
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Groove has some nice services -- it makes it easy to collaborate on Office-format documents, to IM with other people in your space, and to create ad-hoc discussion forums, all with a bit more structure than the typical Wiki site. It also doesn't require a separate server to host all of this info -- all the nodes in a Groove community know about the other nodes and send notifications around when data changes.

Ben Combee
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Yes, you're missing something - rather a lot in fact.

Its a complex tool for letting people work together - users can be distributed over a local network or all over the internet.

Its got integrated text and voice chat (the latter works rather better than most of the free options - at least it did the last time I looked).

Files and other things sync automagically.

There are a pile of simple tools for which yes, there are probably free alternatives, but they are all integrated into the one environment - and they all sync automagically.

Its an amazing tool - even before you get to the possibilities it affords to the developer.

Murph
Thursday, March 18, 2004

How much does Groove cost for 2 people? I have always been confused by their web site.

Matthew Lock
Thursday, March 18, 2004

http://www.groove.net/default.cfm?pagename=KitComparison

Fred
Thursday, March 18, 2004

But only if you collaborate with people. No digs against Groove, it's a pretty cool piece of software, but having bought 2.1 (and played with the 2.5 trial), I can say that it's pointless to use it unless you're going to collaborate with someone who uses Groove.

I'm of the opinion -- and, this is MY opinion -- you're better off with an instant messenger, a wiki, and a blog for P2P collaboraton.

Andrew Burton
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Depends on who you're collaborating with - and what other tools you're going to use.

Another techie? Use whatever. Non techies? Groove... cost per seat isn't huge and you're going to have less pain.

Most important this is that everything is in one place - this is *huge*.

Murph
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Prakesh,

Wiki with RSS sounds useful. Any ones you can recommend? A search of sourceforge for Wiki yields too many results, so I'm interested in what people actually use and what they think of it?

Ken Klose
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Thanks everyone, some more points to clarify.

Murph:

Does groove act as a repositry as well? How is the search feature that comes with it?

Andrew:

Why is collaboration with non groove users difficult?

Ken:

I think there are a bunch of them out there. FlexWiki comes to mind.

Prakash S
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Prakash S: As I understand it, for Groove to work as a P2P system, you both need Groove. Much like you and a friend both need MSN Messenger to converse with somone using MSN Messenger. Does that answer your question?

Andrew Burton
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Bah. I mixed plurals and examples. Let me start over.

Groove's protocol, as far as I know, is not an open protocol like HTTP (web) or TOC (AOL IM). To use Groove as a collaboration tool, both people need Groove. Otherwise, Groove is just a tool on your computer. If I implied that it was hard to collaborate with people who didn't use Groove, than I didn't express myself well enough. What I meant to say was, if you're going to use Groove then the people you collaborate will need to use Groove as well. I had Groove sitting on my desktop, idle for months because no one I knew used it; all the while I used blogs, IM, and email to get work done.

Groove may be a good tool, but it's only a good tool if it forms a Groove Network (between users). Otherwise, it's clutter. (Does that answer your question?)

Andrew Burton
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Groove is also useful if you want someplace to store things in 192 bit encryption and replicate them to multiple locations.

I can dump source code files in my groove workspace and the files are automatically replicated out to my work pc, home pc, and my other work pc (at job #2).

I do not use it to work with anyone else.

CaptainGroove
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Groove is nice, but Kubi
http://kubisoftware.com
is also very neat. The web page is full of wanky drivel but if look hard enough you can find a flash animation showing it in action.

The biggest plus over any other groupware "solution" is that is uses Outlook/Notes as the client, and SMTP as the protocol. Thus the users don't need to learn yet another piece of software, and they don't need to remember to start it up in the morning. It's just there.

However they don't offer any hint of pricing on their web site, so it's a non starter.

Rhys Keepence
Friday, March 19, 2004

Has anyone used Groove for defect tracking? We are developing our software product in distributed team and our beta testers are offline. And teammates often travel and most hotels don't have internet connection. So I need to a tool to be able to enter bugs while offline and then synchronise with main server later. Any recommendations?

Sergey Markov (St. Petersburg, Russia)
Friday, March 19, 2004