Abstract: A system provides an on-line project area. The project area includes respective private areas for entities participating in the project. Each private area is accessible and controllable only by participants from an entity associated with that private area. The project area includes a shared area that is accessible to all participants. A determination regarding whether and to whom information from a particular private area is to be shared is based on permissions established according to a distributed system in which each participant independently can control sharing of objects owned by that participant from the participant's private area to the shared area.