This chapter covers various collaboration tools. Collaboration enables people to share thoughts and solve problems collectively. With the help of the Internet, we can communicate quickly and more effectively. Tools such as WhatsApp and Slack have changed the way we communicate personally, as well as in corporate life. Services such as Google Docs hosts our documents in the cloud, which can then be shared with multiple people and simultaneously modified by them. Need a comment on your latest edit? Click that chat button and send your request. Need to discuss face to face? Click another button to start video call. Need to send a long detailed message? Yes, we've got e-mail services.

Most of these services are hosted by Internet giants and available as SAAS (Software as a Service) products. Simply choose subscription plans and start using them. Many of these services even offer free basic plans. The only problem with these services is you've got to trust a service provider with your data. All your messages, emails, photos, and important documents are hosted with some third party.

In this chapter, we will learn to how set up various open source tools on our own servers. We have already installed an email and instant messaging service, central Git hosting, and a file server. This chapter will focus on more advanced collaboration tools. We will cover the VNC server to share your desktop, the OwnCloud server for document and file sharing, and Mattermost, an open source Slack alternative.