Noticed this comment on the CommitterStatus.ods file: "Wondering: I think I may be about to experience the disadvantage of binary documents in SVN. If I have a collision, finding a way to merge has to be all off-line and I could collide for a long time while working on this document off-line. Heh."
There is a technique we could use in SVN to make binary collisions less likely. If we set the svn:needs-lock property for the file, then when it is checked in, the working copy will be read-only at the OS level. If the user then locks the file in SVN, it becomes writable. And when committed the lock is released and the working copy is read-only again. In general locking is a bad thing, but there are trade-off's when dealing with binary files that cannot be merged or even effectively diff'ed if simultaneously edited. -Rob
