Reusing groupware applications

Abstract

Many groupware applications have been developed and continue being developed over white-box groupware platforms. These platforms have brought important contributions to the development of groupware systems. However, the lack of compatibility among these platforms is limiting the portability of such solutions. This paper presents a middleware, which allows to improve the portability of new and legacy groupware applications supported by white-box platforms. The middleware translates a set of functionalities provided by the groupware platforms to a set of common groupware services used by the applications. These services provide groupware support and allow to improve the portability of groupware systems. A prototype of the proposed middleware has been tested and the interim results are encouraging.