Sharing directories across the LAN

[Derek Broughton]

This isn't strictly an Ubuntu question, but I'm having trouble deciding the
best way to handle my problem.

I have a project on which my partner and I have to collaborate, and need a
shared folder structure.

In an ideal world, I'd just create a subversion repository and we'd check
files in or out as needed, but the partner in question is my wife, so I
can't just dictate terms :-)

The problem I'm running into is with making all files modifiable by both
users.  If the folder has the guid bit set, and we're both in the group,
then all files get created with the same group - so far so good.  However,
by default files are generally not created with group write permission, and
I don't really want to change that globally.

Sharing with NFS doesn't seem helpful.  Sharing with Samba supposedly lets
me specify "force user" and "force group", but I either don't understand
the use of these options, or they don't work :-)

Finally, I just set up a desktop shortcuts to sftp://user@host/.  It works
well enough, since I'm using KDE, but there's got to be a better way.  Any
suggestions?
-- 
derek