SVG + XMPP = whiteboard

A whiteboard is an online shared space where two (or more) distant persons can edit the same document in real time. It creates an instant social interaction around a document.

I have spotted on Ferris at least two projects which are (or in the process of) using a combination of SVG and XMPP for creating whiteboards.

• Coccinella. The Mats Bengtsson said recently: "The canvas widget in Tcl/Tk is way too limited to use as a basis to implement SVG support on the scripting level. For some time I have therefore developed the tkpath package which adds all needed drawing elements from SVG, see some shots, using the C plug in structure. However, this is too limited for SVG and its underlying XML tree structure."
• TransVerse. Boyd Fletcher said: "As part of our work on whiteboarding, we have developed a Wildfire plugin that implements multi-user Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) based whiteboarding over XMPP with full support for multi-user file transfer for binary image transmission."

Niklas has also made a proposal for a protocol for whiteboarding in Jabber using SVG and XMPP.