There are two main frameworks currently used to present information (in particular, related to scientific fields).
A document redacted with the standard LaTeX / PDF toolbox.
Pros: these documents are state-of-the-art quality.
Cons: the final user has no way of interacting with a PDF document (other than sending an e-mail to the original authors)
The Web 2.0 way (think of: Wikipedia or Stack Exchange ).
Pros: in those frameworks, content is continuously developed and augmented by users.
Cons: the end result, though, is fragmented, and cannot (in general) be presented as an unified document.
A ColDoc tries to get the best of two publishing frameworks
