Exhaustive Search and Resolution of Puzzles in OT Systems Supporting String-Wise Operations

OT (Operational Transformation) is a consistency maintenance technique for real-time collaborative editors and a continuous topic of research in CSCW for over two-decades. One main challenge in OT research is to detect and resolve puzzles -- characteristic collaboration scenarios or transformation cases in which an OT system may fail to produce consistent results. A long-standing open issue is whether we can find and solve all possible puzzles in OT systems supporting string-wise operations under well-defined consistency requirements. In this paper, we present our research that solves this open problem and a set of concrete string-wise transformation functions capable of solving all known puzzles and preserving well-defined consistency requirements. Our results contribute to the advancement of state-of-the-art of OT fundamental knowledge and technological innovation.

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