Concurrent editing in emacs

[Vikas Rawal <vikasrawal@gmail.com>]

I am looking for a solution where an emacs session is shared with
multiple users who can simultaneously work on some/all buffers.

I have come across this solution:
https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/papers/r4_byobu_collaborate.pdf

This is., however, not entirely satisfactory as only one user controls
the cursor at any time. Every user has the same view of emacs, the
control keeps jumping from one user to another depending on who
attempts to take control last.

What I am looking for is a solution where different users can
independently work on the buffers. Each user should be able to see
what others are doing but not prevent others. This could obviously
create conflicts and we will have to have a clean mechanism for
locking resources (whoever takes control first retains it until
released).

It would be good if this controlling mechanism is major-mode
specific. For example, an ESS buffer running R should have
buffer-level lock. But an org-mode buffer might have a headline-level
locking mechanism.

I don't know if something like this can be achieved using existing
tools, or whether this is an area in which tools need to be developed.

But I thought I will put this out, in case somebody has pointers,
solutions or any advice.

Vikas