TL; Dr: French and German governments recently announced Docs, designed for use on a collaborative writing and information-sharing service cloud or offline. Located as a potential alternative to Google Docks, Framelines and similar devices, Docs emphasizes “simplicity” and security for European Union professionals to move away from US-made products.
The Trump administration has changed relations between the US and Europe to a great extent. In response, Brussels are looking for new alliances with foreign powers and searching alternative technology solutions, to be compatible with this new reality. Nothing seems immune for this change, not even a traditional online tool for cooperation and document editing.
While its official introduction is more than the political message, the project can certainly be seen as a political statement from Europe’s two biggest powers.
Docs is a combined initiative by the Digital Sovereignty Center of Public Administration for Digital Affairs and the Digital sovereignty Center of Public Administration for Digital Sovereignty of Germany. Both organizations are committed to financing digital sovereignty projects, and they have developed doorses as a cooperation tool for European agencies and businesses.
As an open-source project, Docks is easily available on Github, allowing anyone to download and test its code. The tool is designed using Django Rest, Next.JS, Blocknotes.JS, and other open-sources framework, and can be deployed on a cloud server or can be used offline.
Currently in beta, Docs is accessible through France’s Proconnect Identity Service, and a test environment is available for users to detect its features using login credentials provided by developers on Github.
The purpose of Docs is to provide a “unrelated” and spontaneous writing experience, according to its developers, a minimal interface is characterized where the material takes predicts on the layout. The platform includes all necessary cooperation features, such as real-time editing, keyboard shortcuts, offline mode and media imports. It also provides granular access control, allowing users to share specific information safely with the right people.
Documents and projects can be exported to three separate formats with adaptable templates: PDF, Word and Opendok. The equipment also includes an underlying wiki facility to help the teams organize knowledge and cooperation terminology. Development still includes upcoming features, a advanced search function and the ability to pin important documents.
The doors are issued under the permissible MIT license, allowing both commercial and private use. While the project is mainly a public sector initiative led by government organizations dinum and zandis, private institutions are encouraged to use, contribute or even commercialization using the open-source code available on Github.
