FreeBSD Begins Switch to Subversion

An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Project has begun the switch of its source code management system from CVS to Subversion. At this point in time, FreeBSD's developers are making changes to the base system in the Subversion repository. We have a replication system in place that exports our work to the legacy CVS tree on a continuous basis. People who are using our extensive CVS based distribution network (including anoncvs, CVSup, cvsweb, ftp) will not be interrupted by our work-in-progress. We are committed to maintaining the existing CVS based distribution system for at least the support lifetime of all existing 'stable' branches. Security and errata patches will continue to be made available in their usual CVS locations."

CVSup

[bsDaemon]

I don't have any experience with Subversion, so I don't know if this is going to be "better" or not -- but will CVSup still work more or less the same once the migration is complete?

Re:

[X0563511]

It should - the operation CVSup performs is a core function of version control, but wraps some CVS details up.

Likely, all you will need to do with subversion is this:
> cd /usr/ports
> svn update ... come back later to an updated portage tree.
CVS would probably be that simple, but for it's need for you to 'log in' and some strange (to me) syntax. CVSup eliminates that weirdness.

Of course, I'm sure that CVSup does a lot of extra stuff I don't know

Re:

[bsDaemon]

I haven't even bothered trying to mess with the nVidia driver -- generic vga displays just fine. Then again, I'm using WindowMaker and have no intention of messing with compiz. i tried it on mint, but it kept crashing... i don't even care if i'm wasting 512mb of video ram...

PC-BSD will auto-detect and install nvidia; it started the nvidia crap when i put up a livecd on my laptop the other day, but i didn't install it 'cause I don't want to fuss with removing all the KDE stuff.

Re:

[X0563511]

Well, in my experience vga is just too slow, even for mundane stuff. Also, I like to mess with graphics and such - and even just updating the screen in a timely manner is nice (vga is ssllooww!!))

Re:

[bsDaemon]

yes, it is sort of a slow-ass bitch. I'm just dealing with it for right now. I'll probably fix it this weekend.

Re:

[MavEtJu]

If you are still using CVS, or CVSup, for updating your ports tree, I suggest you have a look at portsnap(8):

PORTSNAP(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual PORTSNAP(8)

NAME
          portsnap -- fetch and extract compressed snapshots of the ports tree

Re:

[X0563511]

Does portsnap grab whole copies of the tree, or does it only update individual files like I think CVSup does?

Re:

[geniusj]

It does the latter. Also look at freebsd-update written by the same guy and also included in the base system.

Re:

[MavEtJu]

portsnap *fetches* the whole tree but it can extract parts of it.

Re:

[kv9]

Likely, all you will need to do with subversion is this: > cd /usr/ports > svn update ... come back later to an updated portage tree.

heathen!

Re:

[X0563511]

Whoops... well, ports and portage arn't really that different in form or function. Plus, portage is a cooler name :P

Re:

[phsdeadc0.de]

I don't have any experience with Subversion, so I don't know if this is going to be "better" or not -- but will CVSup still work more or less the same once the migration is complete?

Yes. For now, they're automatically pushing all SVN commits into CVS. That way, the old CVS distribution infrastructure will continue to work. An insightful email from the guy doing the conversion can be found here [freebsd.org].

Re:

[Hatta]

It will be replace with SVNup.

Re:

[cperciva]

For the forseeable future, yes. Commits to SVN are being replicated into CVS, so all the existing CVS infrastructure will continue working.

Re:

[gfim]

You shouldn't be using CVSup these days. Try csup instead. It's more efficient, doesn't require Modula, and is part of the base system. It's backwards compatible with supfiles too.

FreeBSD is dying?

[Chas]

Oh wait...
Maybe not...

Here's hoping they have better luck than some of the switchovers I've had the "privilege.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:GIT?

[bark]

They don't use git because FreeBSD development has traditionally been "centralized". They use a model where patches are fed to a group of core developers with "commit permission" to the tree, and all source changes are vetted and fed through that funnel. Subversion's centralized source control methodology works well with the FreeBSD development process, and the decentralized aspects of git is not needed.

However, of course, there is still some distributed coding going on at the edges, but they tend to be peripheral and experimental. The developers working on these experimental branches can choose to use whatever source control system they wish. Many FreeBSD developers prefer perforce for their experimental work, but they can use git or mercurial if they wish.

Re:GIT?

[LurkerXXX]

Subversion has an Apache/BSD type license. GIT does not.

Re:

[compass46]

That wasn't any factor in the discussions about the switch as I remember. It was mostly, "What do people like and what will satisfy the most people."

Re:

[krelian]

http://reddit.com/r/programming/info/6lzue/comments/c048e6q [reddit.com]

There are other informative comments by that guy over there if you are interested.

Re:GIT?

[AKAImBatman]

GIT lost the version control war early on. Its focus on Linux development with little to no support for Windows and Mac made it unpopular. That's a situation that has changed (somewhat), but the stigma is still attached to it. Which is not really a problem. GIT was developed to meet the needs of the Linux Kernel Project. If it happens to meet the needs of other projects, great. If it doesn't, that's just as fine.

In any case, Mercurial [wikipedia.org] ended up being the "best of breed" solution. It offered all the features of the competing version control systems, was portable across platforms, had a significant toolchain appear practically overnight, and is used by HUGE OSS companies like Sun and Mozilla. I've used it in my own projects and have found that it is much easier and more dynamic than the classic, monolithic model of CVS.

Oh really?

[krog]

Thanks for promptly settling the SCM dispute! Now I'd love to hear your ideas on which text editor is the best.

Re:Oh really?

[0xABADC0DA]

VI lost the editor war early on. Its focus on text files with little to no support for email or shell prompts or playing text-mode hangman made it unpopular. That's a situation that has changed (somewhat), but the stigma is still attached to it. Which is not really a problem. VI was developed to meet the needs of text editing. If it happens to meet the needs of other activities, great. If it doesn't, that's just as fine.

In any case, EMACS ended up being the "best of breed" solution. It offered all the features of the competing editors, was portable across platforms, had a significant tools (and games) appear practically overnight, and is used by HUGE OSS icons like RMS. I've used it in my own projects and have found that it is much easier and more dynamic than the classic, command/insert model of VI.

har, har...

Re:

[bsDaemon]

EMACS isn't an editor. It's a LISP machine implemented in software that happens to have a text editor program for it.

Re:

[krog]

EMACS isn't an editor. It's a LISP machine implemented in software that happens to have a text editor program for it.

You make it sound so haphazard! Emacs needed a text-editor; otherwise, how could it be completely self-hosting? Any program that can't bootstrap itself can fuck itself.

Re:

[hawk]

EMACS has an editor?

I guess we can finaly put away the old complaint about being a great OS in need of a good editor . . .

hawk

Re:

[ari_j]

Emacs only has an editor because the default keybindings, purely by luck or possibly because that seemed convenient at the time, happen to implement one. The problem is that none of the Emacs developers can come to any kind of agreement on better default keybindings.

Re:Oh really?

[WK2]

Yes, EMACS has an editor. Vi runs in EMACS.

Re:

[Brandybuck]

Linux is nothing more than a bootloader for Emacs...

Oh wait, did I just say that on a FreeBSD thread?

Re:

[bsDaemon]

Well, pretty much... GNU is UNIX done the MIT way. MIT are LISP-addicts, which is why GNU stuff uses Scheme (via GUILE) for scripting and extensions, and EMACS is pretty much just a LISP machine in and of itself.

I don't much care for LISP, honestly.

Re:

[vimm]

That hurts.. ..at least my hands aren't mangled by the end of the day though!

Re:

[Jack9]

used by HUGE OSS icons like RMS

That's not an endorsement.

Re:

[mTor]

GIT lost the version control war early on. Its focus on Linux development with little to no support for Windows and Mac made it unpopular. That's a situation that has changed (somewhat), but the stigma is still attached to it. Which is not really a problem. GIT was developed to meet the needs of the Linux Kernel Project. If it happens to meet the needs of other projects, great. If it doesn't, that's just as fine.

Huh? Git didn't have windows support very early on but very soon you could compile it with Cygwi

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian's popcon agrees with this synopsis.

Basically, in the first year or so of the "distributed SCM revolution" in 2005, Mercurial was in the lead. However in mid 2006 git passed it by, and took off exponentially. At the moment Mercurial usage is about half that of git. It looks like within a year or so git will pass rcs and soon after that cvs, to become the second most popular scm after svn.

It seems that in general, Mercurial is chosen by comities (Solaris, Mozilla etc.) as it offends the least number

Re:

[AKAImBatman]

If you go by Debian's popcon, Subversion has already kicked both our asses and we should all go home:

http://people.debian.org/~igloo/popcon-graphs/index.php?packages=darcs%2Cgit-core%2Cmercurial%2Cbzr%2Csubversion%2C+cvs&show_installed=on&want_legend=on&want_ticks=on&from_date=2003-10-01&to_date=&hlght_date=&date_fmt=%25Y-%25m&beenhere=1 [debian.org]

Re:

[AceJohnny]

Funnily enough, your graph also shows that Git kicks Mercurial's butt at somewhere over twice the install-base. :)

Granted, Debian popcon does not account for all the windows VCS installs, which you claim is Mercurial's strong territory.

Nevertheless, it's interesting that in the Unix world, Git is the strongest up-and-comer, so the fight isn't as clear-cut as you claim it is.

Re:

[AKAImBatman]

It's not my graph. It's the graph that the parent was referring to. As you pointed out, the data is skewed toward a certain segment of Unix users. My point was that if we take that chart as gospel (which we cannot, because it's not representative of the market as a whole) both GIT and Mercurial have already lost. Badly.

Re:GIT?

[AKAImBatman]

To reply or not to reply? I suppose replying probably won't assuage your holy quest, but here we go.

As for Hg, it's lost the war. Git has won. If you want proof, try some searches for "git tutorial" and "mercurial tutorial" and see who's winning.

Ready?
Googlefight! [googlefight.com]

git tutorial: 512,000 results
mercurial tutorial: 1,100,000 results

Winner: Mercurial!

Also, Google Code now provides Git repos for almost ALL of the projects.

Google doesn't provide JACK for GIT. GIT uses SVN. In order to use GIT with Google, you need to have a GIT->SVN translator:
http://nigel.mcnie.name/blog/using-git-for-your-sourceforgegoogle-code-project [mcnie.name]

Git didn't have windows support very early on but very soon you could compile it with Cygwin.

Installing a Cygwin environment is not a supportable solution for most corporations. They needed native solutions. Something which has begun to appear.

Target audience were Linux hackers so having support for various other systems wouldn't have done much at all.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The target audience is Linux hackers. They are the ones using GIT. The business world, OTOH, has chosen Mercurial. Such is the way of things.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite...

git tutorial: 589,000 Results

mercurial tutorial: 680,000 Results

"git tutorial": 5,890 Results

"mercurial tutorial": 647 Results

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Using quotes is asking for trouble. You are effectively assuming the rules of grammar in a complex language. Never use that for statistics. For that matter, never use Google Fights as evidence. As the fight above exemplifies, different Google users will get different results depending on their region and Google's last spider. The only consistent piece of information was that Mercurial had more search results.

Re:GIT?

[mTor]

You should ALWAYS use quotes for specific phrases. if you've done some SEO work or actually tried paying for AdWords, you'd realize how important phrase searches are on Google.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Use quotes for statistics purposes? FAIL!

To give an example, this will be found with "git tutorial" in quotes:

"Click here for a git tutorial!"

However, it's rather clunky english. This sounds much better...

"Click here for a tutorial on mercurial" ...but won't be found with "mercurial tutorial".

Statistics != SEO != Adwords

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

"tutorial on Mercurial":
'No results found for "tutorial on mercurial".'

"tutorial on git": 323 Results.

Re:

[fafne]

git tutorial: 592 000 hits mercurial tutorial: 1 080 000 hits Am I missing something?

Re:

[derago]

Yes, try the same search with quotes. Not that it would matter anyways, as it's not a viable method for comparing the usage of both. Let me reinterpret these results:

"Git is easier to learn than Mercurial as evidenced by the sheer ammounts of Mercurial tutorials that seem to be needed"

(Disclaimer: This is not my personal opinion. Just to demonstrate the uselessness of this data. But flame away anyways if you have bad eyesight, I'll actually be doing something worthwhile in the meantime.)

Re:

[macshit]

in short, Git has already won and expect it to be the biggest source code versioning system in less than two years from now.

Indeed. Hg had an early boost from large organizations (e.g. sun), apparently because of it's better windows support at the time, but it seems clear that git has the majority of mindshare these days, especially in the FOSS world.

Here's a graph of scm system on usage on debian [debian.org] which made the rounds recently (note this is based on "popcon" statistics, which measure use of each tool). The top two descending lines are CVS and SVN; the third-from-the-top ascending line is git; the rest of the lines incluc

Re:

[Skrapion]

Huh? Git didn't have windows support very early on but very soon you could compile it with Cygwin.

So, your advice to Windows users is "use Linux"? I don't think that's going to fly, and I suspect your view might be a little myopic.

But it's okay, implying that Mercurial had early Windows support is almost as laughable. When did TortoiseHg begin development, December?

Re:

[oojah]

I'm sure that one could also argue that a difference in the number of hits for tutorial is indicative of the relative difficulty of the vcs :)

Cheers,

Roger

Re:GIT?

[Fweeky]

Path of least resistance; it works much like CVS, it fits in with existing infrastructure, and everyone knows how to use it.

git isn't terribly well suited to very large monolithic projects; you need to split into multiple smaller projects since it tracks entire trees rather than single files. When your tree is 1.3GB+ and has upwards of quarter of a million files that's rather painful either way.

It also isn't well suited to rewriting history, e.g. in the case when you have to remove a changeset because it violates someone's patent or copyright; you can rewrite the repository to remove it, but you end up renaming every commit afterwards, since their names are SHA1's dependent on every previous commit, generating tonnes of churn in many different places as the whole of history basically disappears and reappears elsewhere.

Many of git's advantages can still be leveraged with SVN; git-svn works pretty well, and it doesn't require massive upheavals in all areas of the project.

Re:GIT?

[Chemisor]

Well, if you believe Linus, it must be because they are ugly and stupid :)

Re:

[norkakn]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4400856579609253323&q=structure+of+freebsd&ei=k-VGSJH-DZT44gK5-YmZDA [google.com]

Towards the end he talks about it.

Why GIT?

[argent]

FreeBSD's development model isn't all that similar to Linux, so why do you think they should use a tool designed to support a very different model?

Re:

[arensic]

Honestly, I'd be more interested in knowing why they chose SVN over the many options out there, and furthermore which options they considered in the first place. I hear about CVS, perforce, subversion, GIT, and mercurial all the time, but there are yet more options out there. For example, I recently discovered darcs, which I like as it happens to think about revisions the way I do (patches.) They all have their own qualities, and the more familiar the differences are, the easier it is to decide which tool

Re:

[tuffy]

Emacs is also GPLed, but that doesn't mean everything I write with it is also automatically GPLed. Unless the BSD people are planning to become Git developers, the source license makes no difference. Try reading it sometime.

Re:

[Calinous]

You can use a GPL licensed product in any way you wish.
  GPL imposes limits on you only if you distribute GPL code (or the result of its compilation)

Re:

[Skrapion]

I doubt this is one of the primary reasons they chose Subversion, but there is a very real possibility that they would eventually want to distribute SVN.

FreeBSD currently distributes two tools to update the ports tree: csup and portsnap. With SVN, they could get the efficiency of csup with the simplicity of portsnap, while also adding all the features of proper source control. But if their tools of choice aren't BSD licensed, they can't include them in the distribution.

(There is one very good reason they

Re:

[DuckDodgers]

You are either misinformed or obnoxious.

If your logic was correct, then playing music through a sound card with GPL drivers would make the music GPL, and compiling programs with a GPL compiler (like GCC) would make them GPL, and writing a book in a GPL text editor would make it GPL. That's not the case.

GIT's GPL license applies to GIT itself, not the code it distributes.

Perforce

[sqrammi]

I thought core FreeBSD developers used Perforce: http://perforce.freebsd.org./ [perforce.freebsd.org] Is that not the case?

Re:

[MavEtJu]

There are different tools for different purposes:

CVS is (was) what the central repository uses to store the software.

Perforce is a central repository for internal development. That way the limitations of CVS for this part of the job don't limit the developers.
But Perforce is commercial software and you can't push it on to the community.

Subversion is a free software which has the capabilities which are set as a requirement for the FreeBSD project. It has some capabilities of Perforce, it has some capabilitie

Subversion, eh?

[cwsulliv]

That headline will undoubtedly draw the attention of the FBI to the FreeBSD gang.

Re:

[mini me]

SVN really is dead. While I could understand the move a few years ago, SVN is antiquated technology now. I'm not sure why anyone would want to use it in a new rollout when there are newer and significantly better options available now.

Re:

[FictionPimp]

such as what?

Seriously, We are looking at setting up SVN for our source code management.

Re:

[AmaDaden]

Git. It's Linus Torvalds fix for his own software management nightmare with the Linux Kernel.
A talk he did on it [youtube.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software) [wikipedia.org]

SVN is better for FreeBSD development

[bigsmoke]

Contrary to Linux, FreeBSD uses a centralized development methodology which SVN is very well-suited for. (Now, if only they hurry up with the stable release of their merge-tracking, I could say that Subversion is perfect for a centralized development model.)

Then, there's the obvious licensing issue. GIT is released under the GPL, which, I'd guess, is a little too restrictive for BSD-style people. :P

Re:

[Lost+Found]

Isn't GCC under the GPL as well? :p

Re:

[bigsmoke]

Good point... :P

Re:

[Lennie]

Open is already interrested.

Re:

[AmaDaden]

Linux uses a kind of centralized development methodology. The Linux Kernel we get is really Linus' branch. He does not write code anymore he only checks it and merges it in to his branch. The trick with git is you commit it to the person above you and not to a repository. This way your boss can pick and choose what fixes and updates from you and others at your level get pushed up to your bosses boss. In the end it all gos to one place. If you really wanted to every one could just use the same person as ther

Re:

[bigsmoke]

Thanks for your elucidation. I've also been using Git a bit recently (for the same reasons you state) and have found it very satisfactory so far. Of course it'll take some time to familiarize myself with it to the same level of familiarity that I have with svn.

Re:

[AmaDaden]

Thanks for your elucidation.

Funny thing is I haven't even used it yet. I just got very excited about it after hearing about the idea. If you haven't yet I would recommend the video I posted. Also this podcast http://www.twit.tv/floss19 [www.twit.tv] talks about it. Everything I have learned came from those three links.

Re:

[bigsmoke]

Thanks for the tips. I'll put them down for later reference.

I've been mostly introduced to it by the following Google Techtalk by Linus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8 [youtube.com] This is also very much a recommendation.

Re:

[bigsmoke]

My bad. I see you already linked to that techtalk in your original reply.

Re:dead...

[AKAImBatman]

Mercurial [wikipedia.org] is the solution currently in use at Mozilla, Sun, and quite a few Linux projects. (Though not the main kernel branch. That's GIT. Think something more along the lines of ALSA.)

Mercurial is interesting because it encourages teams to work together, pushing and pulling source code from each other. When the source reaches a stable point, you can push that to a central repository for building and archiving.

The interesting aspect about this design is that it actively encourages branching! Rather than treating branches as a special thing that needs to be done under a certain set of circumstances, it treats every copy of the repository as a branch. So developers can work independently. When they come back together, the tool is able to auto-merge most projects back into a single whole.

Mercurial is able to do this because it tracks the point of divergence. With that information, it can see if any of the changes truly conflict. 95% of the time, there is no conflict and Mercurial is able to merge the files auto-magically. The other 5% of the time, Mercurial will launch a merge tool and make you answer YES/NO to each difference. This process is amazingly smooth.

The key thing to keep in mind with Mercurial is that you won't want to keep all your source in one repository. (Like most companies do with CVS.) Keep a separate repository for each project or module. You can keep the repositories all in the same path, but it's much easier to work with only the code you need rather than copying around a 10GB source tree from developer to developer.

If you do decide to try Mercurial and are given a Windows development machine, I highly recommend TortoiseHG [sourceforge.net]. You'll occasionally have to run 'hg update' from the command line (the tool will prompt you), but it's otherwise a very slick way of working with Mercurial repositories.

Oh, and don't use the CVS->Mercurial conversion tools. It leaves CVS-style droppings all over creation. Just import the latest codebase and keep CVS running in read-only mode for as long as you need historical data.

Re:

[PotatoFarmer]

I've never used Mercurial before, so I don't know if the comparison fits exactly, but the branch/merge style of development you've described can be done very easily within CVS and SVN. That sort of thing is much cleaner in SVN as you're branching from a base repository revision rather than from a tag that can be moved/reapplied, but it's possible if you're careful in CVS as well. From there, it comes down to personal preference with regard to whatever merge tool you care to use.

I greatly prefer that sty

Re:

[Ian_Bailey]

It is definitely possible to do branch/merge work with CVS/SVN, but you need to track the merge points yourself, and be aware not to merge the same changeset twice. Git and Mercurial make the process far easier by tracking merge points for you.

Also, one big thing distributed source control gives you is the ability to "clone" or "fork" your own copy of the repository. This lets you make small, incremental changes that you can roll-back and merge back as you like, and then you can "push" all of your commits b

Re:

[PotatoFarmer]

I'm not sure what you mean by tracking the merge points yourself - the act of branching in SVN automatically bumps the version number for the entire repository, both trunk and branch. That version is then automatically assumed to be your base point for your diff and subsequent merge. It's messier in CVS, but unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean by merge point I don't see how SVN is different from what you've described.

I agree with you on the distributed source control bit - that sounds like a nice

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

Unless it has been fixed recently, subversion does NOT track merge points. If you branch at revision 1000, merge the head into the branch at revision 2000, and want to do it again at revision 3000, you yourself have to remember to tell it to start at revision 2000, otherwise it will remerge all those already merged revisions from 1000-2000. It's a major pain in the butt and utterly inexcusable to have to manually track that, whether you do it in subversion comments, notes in external files, or postits.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

You create a branch at rev 1000. At rev 2000, months later, you want to update the branch with all changes that have been applied to the trunk since the branch was made or last updated. So you merge in 1001...2000.

Now, again months later, you are at rev 3000 on the trunk and again want to update the branch with all changes to the trunk that are not in the branch, ie, revs 2001...3000. Subversion ought to remember that this branch was brought up to rev 2000 changes, but it doesn't. Since I no longer use

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

When I (have to) use Subversion, and need the equivalent of a branch, I just cp -a my checked out trunk and switch between the copies. They aren't really branches, but they are close enough most of the time as long as it's just me working on them. They do no good for letting other people access my "branch". I really detest Subversion branches.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

Nothing. I haven't worked on Windows for the last 20 years except one two hour horrifying stint once, where I discovered several stupid bugs in Visual Studio where I didn't apparently conform to the WallyWorld work usage, and no one at WallyWorld had ever imagined someone might one to do things a different way.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[j-pimp]

tortoisesvn.tigris.org [slashdot.org]
Integrates in windows explorer. Setting up a server might take a bit of fiddling, but if you have a linux box svn+ssh just works.

Re:

[j-pimp]

I discovered several stupid bugs in Visual Studio where I didn't apparently conform to the WallyWorld work usage, and no one at WallyWorld had ever imagined someone might one to do things a different way.

I think with more than two hours you could do things the way you wanted, or discover a better way of doing things that Visual studio will allow. Visual Studio is one of the better microsoft products.

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

Here's an example. Remember, I had never used Visual Studio before, and hadn't used Windows in probably ten years. This was 1999 or 2000. Remember also that details are hazy now.

I discovered by accident that if you brought up help on something, there were sometimes links to click which added stub code to a source file. Then you would edit that source file to add the filling.

Now I don't like lots of windows open, so I wanted to get rid of these source windows when I had added the filler, but there was no

Re:

[marcovje]

If you use the svnmerge script (shell or python versions exists), 1000-2000 will be marked merged. One can also block revs not to merge.

It works reasonly fine, but the problem is that it doesn't work properly on windows. Or at least in a straightforward way if you are using e.g. tortoise + plink.

SVN 1.5 would lay the foundations for merge tracking in the repository, but in how quickly this will be usable and an improvement (read: support all functionality of svnmerge in tortoise) I don't know yet.

Re:

[Timothy Brownawell]

I think any distributed version control system (ie, pretty much all the new free ones except SVN) will encourage branching, lack of a central authority just about requires this.

Re:

[amrik98]

Mercurial [wikipedia.org] is the solution currently in use at Mozilla, Sun, and quite a few Linux projects. (Though not the main kernel branch. That's GIT. Think something more along the lines of ALSA.)

ALSA does not use Mercurial any more, they switched to GIT on 2008-05-20.

Re:dead...

[Jason Earl]

If you are used to CVS then Subversion is definitely a step up, and it will be very familiar to your users. What's more it is well supported by IDEs and has piles of other tools like Tortoise that makes it easy for non-developers to use. Heck, if push comes to shove it can even be used as a WebDAV share with the advantage that it will automagically version your files.

The downside of Subversion is that it isn't very good at merging. Merging branches in current versions of Subversion is a manual process that is ridiculously painful. This can be mitigated somewhat using the svnmerge Python script, but even with the script merging still isn't as easy as any of the distributed version control systems. For people like Linus Torvalds that's basically a showstopper for Subversion. To them merging is basically the whole point of a version control system.

It's quite possible, however, that you have different needs than the Linux kernel. For example, none of the distributed version control systems deal well with large files. If you want to store multi-media files along with your source then Subversion is basically your only option. Likewise, if you plan on having designers or random office workers use your repository then you can forget about the distributed tools.

Re:

[Jack9]

Everyone we hire is either already experienced with SVN or picks it up in about 5 minutes. I don't know what the OP is smoking.

Re:

[A nonymous Coward]

Any distributed one. The first time I tried one (darcs), it blew me away how much easier and stress-free it felt. Like a fresh breeze on a hot muggy day. Darcs has a remaining problem (some specific kinds of actions can take waaaay too long) so altho I still use it for myself, I would not recommend it for massive projects (yet; they are working on it), but git or any number of other distributed systems are so much easier and friendlier than subversion.

Subversion is the best horse buggy you can get, much

Re:

[WuphonsReach]

such as what?

Seriously, We are looking at setting up SVN for our source code management.

Basically, you need to decide how much you value distributed development (using git or the others like Hg) as opposed to more centralized SCM tools like Subversion.

For us, SVN is the natural fit when moving from VSS/SourceOffSite to something better. A centralized repository is a strong feature for us as it simplifies management, is easily understood by less technical end-users, and we don't do a lot of merging.

Re:

[FictionPimp]

Yea, we really like the TortoiseSVN. Plus we have a need to store a lot of graphics and other binary files in our repo as well as code (we do a lot of web development and want to keep all resources together). I think SVN is still our best bet.

Re:

[cduffy]

Windows or Unix shop? How large do you expect your repository's history to get (in terms of revisions per year)?

For a UNIX shop with a very deep history, you're going to be best off with Git.

For a UNIX shop without an exceptionally deep history, Bazaar (Canonical's revision control system) is worth considering. It works well on Windows, but the GUIs there are immature -- so if you're not a UNIX shop and your Windows folks are revision control power users who hate the command line (for whom the currently ava

Re:

[FictionPimp]

It's a very mixed shop. We do development mostly on windows (although I use a mac). Our servers consist of a ton of solaris, a lot of linux, and some novell servers. Most of our work is targeted to the solaris servers (mostly java and we use some php on our website).

We are going to investigate git before we make a decision, but from what I'm reading SVN might be best for us. We have a lot of users who are more comfortable with dreamweaver then a terminal, so SVN's gui tools will fit them better.

Re:

[thermian]

If it's so dead, why do Google use it?

I have a project hosted on Google Project Hosting, and that uses subversion. It's pretty darn good as far as I can tell. It's stable, has a decent base of applications that you can use with it, and there's plenty of documentation out there.

There certainly are plenty of version control systems out there, but, especially when it comes to version control, newer does not mean better automatically.

What matters ultimately is how well liked and widely used they are.

Re:

[mini me]

I don't know it's full history, but from what I can gather, Google Project Hosting was released in 2006. Subversion was the best option back then.

I don't think anyone would question FreeBSD switching to Subversion in 2006 either. But it's 2008 now. Things have changed significantly on the VCS front.