Logoot-Undo: Distributed Collaborative Editing System on P2P Networks

Abstract

Peer-to-peer systems provide scalable content distribution for cheap and resist to censorship attempts. However, P2P networks mainly distribute immutable content and provide poor support for highly dynamic content such as produced by collaborative systems. A new class of algorithms called CRDT (Commutative Replicated Data Type), which ensures consistency of highly dynamic content on P2P networks, is emerging. However, if existing CRDT algorithms support the "edit anywhere, anytime” feature, they do not support the "undo anywhere, anytime” feature. In this paper, we present the Logoot-Undo CRDT algorithm, which integrates the "undo anywhere, anytime” feature. We compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with related algorithms and measure the impact of the undo feature on the global performance of the algorithm. We prove that the cost of the undo feature remains low on a corpus of data extracted from Wikipedia.