[TomOfTTB]

I almost think you're kidding here. It's called a popup.

You use Dropbox's already existing functionality to make a copy file. You then compare the changes and if they don't conflict you merge the files (while backing up both just in case of error). If they do conflict you send a message to the tray application which displays a popup showing the conflicts and asking for a choice. This isn't rocket science.

There are certainly places where that wouldn't be feasible like video editing. But I don't buy the argument that "because you can't do everything you should do nothing". Again I point out this took me a weekend to do with office documents and I didn't work through the night to accomplish it. So you can't really tell me it's out of the grasp of a company that has millions in funding.

[heikkitoivonen]

Ok, so you haven't automated merge conflict resolution.

There are also cryptographically signed documents which you cannot merge, because that would break signatures.

So the question is, how much automated merge processing should be done, and how big are the risks in doing so. Even if the system were capable of doing merges for some documents, it would need to have a setting to turn it off. Recovering erroneously merged documents also needs some thinking. And so forth.

So bottom line is I guess we agree that in some cases merges can be done, automated to some level even, but there is a lot of work needed to make it safe, understandable and usable for the majority of users.