I think local should be an option, since local does not necessarily mean one computer one user...
a shared drive on lan, which I imagine is not uncommon for SME, that is in essence still local.
(or maybe I have gotten that completely wrong...)
"But to think about it, this should also apply to the data source."
yes please, believe that is the right architectural choice.
at the same time, imho, this inherently means that you have to roll your own wrapper around any version scheme used, but you can leverage on this to overcome the limitation of the typical sw-version schemes that in my simple mind are one-dimensional, i.e. they have a revision, whereas a typical current pdm (imho) is two dimensional, it has a revision and a "state" or "status", which basically are independent (suppose it depends on business logic if you are allowed to go back in status or not). I know of some attempts to get the branching/forking, i.e. non-linear versioning type of schemes into enterprise pdm's, personally I think it will just create a mess out of everything, both for users and downstream, but maybe people will like it.
"That is why we need to have roles and an Admin page where you can pick which role you can select."
hm, might be understanding of wording (where mine can be completely off
), but imho "role" means "select a role and you are then stuck with a predefined set of attributes", don't mind roles at all, but the point is then that the attributes in a role should not be fixed, but freely configurable...
"I think that we should stay away from the web as long as we can, because sooner or later all your data is gone, copied or encrypted. Securing a web site is a tough job and we are no experts in that area."
hm, totally get the point, however afaik it is possible to use web-technology without actually being on the world wide web...
if nothing else running a local one-box/user server, or a server deployed in a "private" network
(or I am utterly wrong in that, if so I'm counting on others to point that out)
but, yes, expecting that a hobbyist will off the cuff make a secure website when it is an "open" one is more or less the same as publishing it openly directly. (at the same time I imagine that webframeworks are quite helpful in this matter...)
food for thought.
comparison between webframeworks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vfum74ggHE
is it not really a "document management system" that is most tuned towards pdm-like?
compare what the things do on wikipedia, and what they list as core features...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_ ... ent_system vs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control
one example of a dms:
https://docs.mayan-edms.com/ (incidently django-based)
spend 5 minutes to glance through openpdm code, clearly they have used django, and then it appears that they have used svn to keep track of versions behind the scenes, and built their own "version/status" view.
hm, note to self... seems like without really knowing it upfront, I have made very similar choices to the ones having created openpdm...