Can anyone recommend a good collaborative writing tool?

[jojoba]

I'm looking for something that

- doesn't require other users to sign up for a service or log in, a password would be OK
- can handle simultaneous editing by more than one person
- security settings 'viewed by anyone with the link' is sufficient

Otherwise, I don't need elaborate features, these are simple and short documents.

I thought google docs would do this for me, but so far I'm unable to make it work.

[exegete77]

For a while I used Zoho Office on Google Drive, similar to Google Docs but seemed a little better. But it may require each to sign up.

[nielsrasmus]

http://etherpad.org

it's open source, havn't tried it myself though

[spb3]

Me and my friends have been successfully using Google Docs.
Which part is not working for you?

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by nielsrasmus

http://etherpad.org

it's open source, havn't tried it myself though

Thanks! I just discovered their successor TitanPad, and I think this will do what I need. They do public docs that can be password protected.

Originally Posted by spb3

Me and my friends have been successfully using Google Docs.
Which part is not working for you?

I can't manage to share the document for editing without people being asked to sign in. Apparently it's a known bug (I posted the problem on the google docs forum here). A lot of the people I am collaborating with don't have gmail or google accounts, and I don't want to use anything that requires them to sign up - I'm still working to get them all on board with DropBox (a lot of older folks in the group who have fallen out of technical developments, I need to pick my battles).

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Originally Posted by exegete77

For a while I used Zoho Office on Google Drive, similar to Google Docs but seemed a little better. But it may require each to sign up.

Thanks, it looks interesting but would probably require that sign up process for them which I'm trying to avoid.

[zhenya]

I would be rather surprised if you found something on the public Internet that allowed people to edit your documents without some sort of sign-up. Otherwise it'd be relatively trivial to abuse. A basic sign-up is a way to verify that you're a real person and actually have the rights to edit this document. That's what most people want.

[jojoba]

Originally Posted by zhenya

I would be rather surprised if you found something on the public Internet that allowed people to edit your documents without some sort of sign-up. Otherwise it'd be relatively trivial to abuse. A basic sign-up is a way to verify that you're a real person and actually have the rights to edit this document. That's what most people want.

TitanPad offers this. I can protect the document with a password to ensure some privacy, but it doesn't require that editors of the document actually register with a service (I registered myself, but others who want to edit don't have to). Apparently it's the same with google docs, you can share a document without having people to sign in - however, I'm having issues making this feature work, I've reported it to google and on their google docs forum they say it's some kind of bug, we're in a dialogue trying to resolve it but so far no luck.