The areas of application of hypermedia technology, combined with the c
apabilities that hypermedia provides for manipulating structure, creat
e an environment in which version control is very important. A hyperme
dia version control framework has been designed to specifically addres
s the version control problem in open hypermedia environments. One of
the primary distinctions of the framework is the partitioning of hyper
media version control functionality into intrinsic and application-spe
cific categories. The version control framework has been used as a mod
el for the design of version control services for a hyperbase manageme
nt system that provides complete version support for both data and str
uctural entities. In addition to serving as a version control model fo
r open hypermedia environments, the framework offers a clarifying and
unifying context in which to examine the issues of version control in
hypermedia.