I've often wondered why Microsoft chose to embed a weak implementation of version control into their mutable document format instead of doing something like passing around a signed chain of immutable documents.
The people that made change tracking probably wanted the feature to work and be usable, rather than create another crypto product and have no one figure it out.
Also, if you don't trust the other parties, you can use the compare feature an get a diff of the documents. Keeping your own copy is a easy, simple, way to get a correct view of changes to a document.
Right, so, "signed" in the same sense that a chain of git commits are signed. In other words, resiliency not trust, and full history instead of whatever Track Changes provides.
Sure, and Microsoft provides document signing/rights management, as well, if you can get the supporting infrastructure. Office apps also have built in change revision history. Track Changes is sorta orthogonal here, I think.
Because I don't want a list of separate changes - I want a series of notes _inside_ the document, colour coded for the editors, marked as accepted/rejected, etc.
You can do a mediocre job of inferring the latter from the former, but for 100% support you need to actually put the notes into the file itself.
I've often wondered why Microsoft chose to embed a weak implementation of version control into their mutable document format instead of doing something like passing around a signed chain of immutable documents.