Negotiability: a metafunction to tailor access to data in groupware

Functions which control the access to data in groupware should be flexibly designed by offering different options to the end users. However, conflicts might arise among different end users in the process of selecting one of these options. To support users in finding a consentaneous solution for these conflicts, we propose a metafunction called "negotiability". We propose to define and explore the concept of "negotiability", and discuss its application to access control, concurrency control and consistency control. We assume that negotiability can play an important role in tailoring these mechanisms and supporting a cooperative use of system ́s flexibility.