Google Code is a project hosting and collaboration service based around the Subversion (SVN) and Mercurial (Hg) version control systems. The service provides issue tracking, file hosting and a wiki (Google, 2010). Google Code can only be used by open source projects and only if they use one of the pre-approved open source code licenses (Google, 2010). Version control aids collaboration by ensuring that each developer in a team has an up-to-date version of the code base and by managing conflicts. After making a change, adding a feature or fixing a bug, the developer commits and pushes their changes to a central server (Google, 2010). When a conflict occurs - due to two developers making a change to the same file at the same time or a developer making changes offline without being able to synchronize their repository - the version control system will attempt to merge the changes however in some cases conflicts occur (Raymond, 2003). In such cases' the version control system will highlight the conflicts and point them out allowing the developer to address them before committing their changes (Raymond, 2003). Google Code offers issue tracking that allows developers to track current project defects, and planned enhancements. Each issue can be assigned to a developer and tagged with labels which may indicate things about the issue that may be useful to the project developers (Google, 2009). Google Code also contains a wiki allowing the project documentation and planning process to be collaboratively created and edited (Google, 2010).

Google. (2009, September 19). IssueTrackerFAQ. Retrieved April 19, 2010, from Project Hosting on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/IssueTrackerFAQ Google. (2010, April 8). FAQ. Retrieved April 19, 2010, from Project Hosting on Google: http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/FAQ Google. (2010). Project Hosting on Google Code. Retrieved April 19, 2010, from Google Code: http://code.google.com/projecthosting/ Google. (2010, February 04). WikiFAQ. Retrieved April 19, 2010, from Project Hosting on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/support/wiki/WikiFAQ Raymond, E. (2003, September 19). Chapter 11 Tools - Version-Control Systems. Retrieved April 19, 2010, from The Art of Unix Programming: http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch15s05.html

Codaset is an online collaboration environment for software developers who use the Git source code management system (SCM). The service supports version control, source code browsing, issue tracking, milestones, wiki and blogs (Develop with Style, 2010). Codaset is built around the Git source code management tool which is a distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds and hundreds of other developers (Chacon, 2010). The software allows developers to track changes between versions and other milestones (Wesley, 1998). The changes are shown in the form a 'diff' that can be created between any two revisions or between any two revisions of a specific file (Git Diff, 2010). Projects hosted on Codaset can be public, semi-private or private (Develop with Style, 2010). The first private or semi-private project is free while Public projects have all information stored within them available to everyone and are open for forking and collaboration with all who wish to work on the project Develop with Style , 2010). Semi-private projects have all aspects of the project available to the public except the crucial source code (Develop with Style , 2010). Private projects on the other hand are completely hidden from the public and only those selected by the creator of the project can participate (Develop with Style, 2010). Codaset projects each contain a wiki which can be used to document, and plan the direction of a project. Like source code management, this wiki is also versioned (Develop with Style, 2010).

Git Diff. (2010). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from learn.github: http://learn.github.com/p/diff.html Wesley, R. (1998). Version Control and the Single Developer. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from MacTech: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.06/VersionControlAndTheDeveloper/index.html Chacon, S. (2010). About Git. Retrieved April 16, 2010, from Git - Fast Version Control System: http://git-scm.com/about Develop with Style. (2010). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from Codaset: http://codaset.com

GitHub is a source code management repository host, wiki and issue tracker (GitHub Inc., 2010) that enables software developers to collaborate in the development of web and application software as primary focus but it is useful for collaborating on books and other activities of a text-based nature. GitHub is built around the Git source code management tool which is a distributed version control system developed by Linus Torvalds and hundreds of other developers (Chacon, 2010). The software allows developers to track changes between versions and other milestones. The changes are shown in the form a 'diff' that can be created between any two revisions (Git Diff, 2010). Projects hosted on GitHub can be public or private. Public and open source projects are free while commercial users and those not willing to share source code need to pay a monthly fee. In a public project, the source code stored in the repository is available to the public who can easily fork or submit patches to the project. Private projects are completely hidden from the public and can only be accessed by specifically nominated collaborators. The private project is ideal for organisations, which wish to exploit the power of GitHub but do not or cannot release their source code to the public for various reasons.

GitHub includes an issue tracker which can be used to track bugs, assign tasks and generally keep track of what needs to be done to get the software to a state as desired by the developers and other stake holders in a project (GitHub Inc., 2010). Issues can be tagged with labels to indicate what they contain (bug, enhancement, tasks, etcetera) and to specify which version they are relevant to (Preston-Werner, 2009). For example, whether or not they need to be completed before it is possible to release version 8.9.2 or need to be ready for the 9.0 release. These same labels can be used to assign an issue to a specific person (Preston-Werner, 2009) so that they are made aware that they have been delegated the task of dealing with the issue. GitHub also includes a wiki that can be used to collaborate with other members of a project and provide documentation for the project and its output.

Git Diff. (2010). Retrieved April 18, 2010, from learn.github: http://learn.github.com/p/diff.html Chacon, S. (2010). About Git. Retrieved April 16, 2010, from Git - Fast Version Control System: http://git-scm.com/about GitHub Inc. (2010). Secure source code hosting and collaborative development - GitHub. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from GitHub: http://github.com Preston-Werner, T. (2009, April 15). GitHub Issue Tracker! Retrieved April 18, 2010, from GitHub Blog: http://github.com/blog/411-github-issue-tracker Wesley, R. (1998). Version Control and the Single Developer. Retrieved April 18, 2010, from MacTech: http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.14/14.06/VersionControlAndTheDeveloper/index.html

This article talks about the issue of socio-cultural distance in distributed software development teams and methods to bridge this gap when using a collaborative software development environment. After discussing the various collaborative development environments available to developers, it goes on to talk about integrating FriendFeed micro blog and content aggregation service with IBM's Jazz, a plugin for the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment. By integrating Friendfeed into the collaborative development environment, it is possible to reduce the socio-cultural distance that would otherwise be present if the development was done in a traditional office environment. Examples given included if a developer used LibraryThing to post a review of a book they had read, this would be revealed to the other developers who might be interested in the book which would give them a greater understanding of the developer's interests and become a possible conversation piece. Another example given was where the developers on a team were from different backgrounds such as the difference between American and Indian culture. It was stated that in Indian culture, it would be disrespectful to disagree with a senior developer. It was hoped that through making the development environment more collaborative and social, it would be possible to reduce cultural walls that would make it difficult for the parties to interact in a productive manner. While the article gives examples of the benefits of a more social collaborative development environment, specifically how their FriendFeed plugin for IBM's Jazz could bring these benefits. These do not seem to be based on an actual situation (case study) but rather seem to on how the authors imagine their plugin being used - perhaps based on their own experience in software development. This brings the reliability of the article into question and at the very least, indicates an area for further study.

Calefato, F., Gendarmi, D., & Lanubile, F. (2009). Adding Social Awareness to Jazz for Reducing Socio-Cultural Distance between Distributed Development Teams. Retrieved April 17, 2010, from Università degli Studi di Bari: http://eit09.unibg.it/pdfs/99990017.pdf

GoToMeeting is a service from Citrix that facilitates online meetings between multiple people. The service not only allows for audio chat, but also desktop/screen and file sharing (Citrix, 2010). The service supports up to 15 concurrent users in a single meeting. Similar services are available for larger presentations in the form of GoToWebinar and GoToTraining allowing for 100-1000 and 25-200 users respectively depending on the level of service subscribed. At the conclusion of a meeting, GoToMeeting offers the ability to see who attended the meeting and who did not. To protect the security of its subscribers, GoToMeeting and Citrix's other GoTo products use 128-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) end-to-end encryption (Citrix, 2010). This ensures that all communication is only seen by the intended recipients. AES encryption is a proven encryption algorithm and the cipher approved by the NSA (an American intelligence agency) for storing information up to the SECRET level (and TOP SECRET if a 192-bit or 256-bit key is used) (CNSS Secretariat, 2003). GoToMeeting has several competitors. The main competitors appear to be Cisco WebEx and Microsoft SharedView (successor to NetMeeting). However, competition also exists with combinations of free tools that fill the same need once combined. For example, Skype coupled with TeamViewer could be used to accomplish much the same task although not nearly as easy to use in the screen sharing combined with audio conferencing aspect. Citrix. (2010). Features. Retrieved April 12, 2010, from GoToMeeting: http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/online_collaboration Citrix. (2010). Security & Reliability. Retrieved April 13, 2010, from GoToMeeting: http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/secure_web_conferencing CNSS Secretariat. (2003,