When importing an ODT into Google Docs, it is converted to a format internal to Google Docs. The blog post explains that in WebODF / ownCloud Documents, conversely, no conversion occurs.

For example, WebODF does not support displaying columns yet, but if you have loaded a document with columns, after saving, the columns will still be there.

Since the document is part of the DOM, you can edit it programmatically with JavaScript. So adding functionality for scientific citations is as easy as any website programming. You can do it the clean way and use operations, or you can change the DOM directly. (The latter is not advised in collaborative mode.) So yes, integrating with Zotero, should not be hard.

Adding WebODF into a workflow for collaboratively writing research proposals could be useful. One author adds 'fancy' stuff in e.g. LibreOffice and the other contributors make corrections and additions in a web version of the document.

The server side can be really simple. In a real-time collaboration scenario, there needs to be conflict resolution. The code for that is implemented in JavaScript as well and, in the case of ownCloud Documents, runs in the clients.

Each change to the document is sent as a numbered operation to the server. If a change with the same number has already arrived, the latest changes are sent back to the client. The client then modifies/rebases the original change on top of the new changes and send the change again.

The server stores each individual numbered change for the document as well as snapshots of the document for certain revisions. With some work, one could even store the change (audit trail) inside the document.

AbiCollab certainly precedes by many years. WebODF is newer and has two advantages of AbiCollab.net.

First, WebODF runs just in a browser with no need to install it locally. It runs completely on a webpage. That's why it can by integrated into any web-based workflow. E.g. a user could generate a document by filling in a questionnaire and edit a document afterwards with WebODF.

Second, there is no document conversion. A document that is loaded into LibreOffice, AbiWord, OpenOffice, or Microsoft Office, edited and saved again, will be significantly different from the original document. Features may be lost or saved differently. Since WebODF just loads the ODF XML into the DOM and saves back the DOM, the document is unchanged, except for the places that have been edited. This is even true when the documents contains features, e.g. xforms, that are not supported yet.

The goal is to detect the presence of low amounts of certain molecules related to criminal activity. There is no need to detect scents. So the question is: why are there no cheap and portable detectors that find low concentrations of molecules in the air? Animal scent is based on vibrations in molecules that dock to receptors in the nose. This allows detection of very low concentrations of molecules. Similar systems can now be created artificially.

The store with apps is not available on Linux and neither is a consumer targetted downloadable driver.
There's an SDK that works on Linux. By works I mean it runs. The controller itself is not very good.

The dance needed to avoid an event from propagating is quite occult.

function claimEvent(evt) {
        "use strict";
        if (evt) {
                if (evt.preventDefault) {
                        evt.preventDefault();
                }
                if (evt.stopImmediatePropagation) {
                        evt.stopImmediatePropagation();
                }
                if (evt.stopPropagation) {
                        evt.stopPropagation();
                }
        }
        return false;
}
ontouchstart = function (event) { .......
            return claimEvent(event);
}

You can avoid these delays by overloading the ontouchstart and ontouchend events. These are instant. onclick is not triggered until the mobile browser is certain that you are not inputting a gesture.

Management was involved but did not decide. Don Melton decided to use KHTML:

But I chose the engine we used -- with my teamâ(TM)s and my management chainâ(TM)s support, of course -- ...

That's also why Stallman's solution is ridiculous. When companies are too big to fail, their single-customer suppliers are too vital to fail, regardless of which division they supply. Splitting up a big company doesn't do anything to the risk, but it makes hippies happier.

The suppliers will only fail if the single-customer fails. The single-customer will not have significant problems if one of their suppliers fail. Stallman's suggestion is excellent!: Large companies will pay a percentage of their income as tax. The percentage increases with the global gross income of the company. This will force these companies to have good long term business strategies.

And you have not even mention one.