CVSNT

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CVSNT
Developer: March Hare Software, Ltd.
Latest release: 2.5.03 / July 5, 2006
Preview release: 2.5.04 / September 29, 2006
OS: Unix-like, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, OS/400
Platform: Cross-platform
Use: Revision control
License: LGPL/GPL Style
Website: CVSNT Home

The CVSNT Versioning System implements a version control system: it keeps track of all changes in a set of files, typically the implementation of a software project, and allows several (potentially geographically separated) developers to collaborate. It is compatible with and originally based on Concurrent Versions System (CVS), which has become popular in the open-source world and is released under the GNU General Public License.

Contents

[edit] Features

CVSNT has the task of keeping track of the version history of a project (or set of files).

CVSNT is based on the same client-server architecture as the Concurrent Versions System: a server stores the current version(s) of the project and its history, and clients connect to the server in order to check-out a complete copy of the project, work on this copy and then later check-in their changes. A server may be a caching or proxy server (a read only server that passes on write requests to another server) or a read and write (normal) server.

Typically, client and server connect over a WAN or Internet, but client and server may both run on the same LAN or even the same machine. The server software runs equally well on Unix and various flavors of Windows and is compatible with CVS clients and CVSNT clients and supports a large number of CM methodologies including the CVS compatible unreserved method and the VSS-like reserved method.

The modular nature of CVSNT allows server administrators to dynamically enable and disable protocols as well as load additional functions via triggers such as Audit, Defect Tracking Integration, Automatic Checkout (for webservers) and more.

CVSNT Server features include:

  • Access control for securing projects and branches.
  • Detailed audit and metrics recorded in an SQL database.
  • Authentication with Active Directory.
  • Tracking everything about the change - including whether it was merged from somewhere, belongs to a problem report or was part of a change set.
  • A control panel to manage email notification of changes, defect tracking integration, and more.
  • Integrated repository synchronisation (for fail-over servers).
  • Change set support (group changes by defect number).
  • Supports UNICODE UTF-8/UCS2 files and multi-lingual filenames.
  • When operating in UTF-8 (Unicode) mode it can automatically translate filename encoding for any client.
  • Plug-ins for email notification.
  • Helps make merging branches easier with its "Mergepoint" feature.
  • Native servers available for Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, Solaris, HPUX.
  • Supports reserved and unreserved versioning methodologies.
  • CVSAPI for integration into 3rd party products.
  • Script, COM and 3GL interface for triggers and integration into 3rd party tools (such as defect tracking)

[edit] History and status

Users unhappy with the limitations of CVS 1.10.8 began the development of CVSNT. The original limitations addressed were related to running CVS server on Windows and handling filenames for case-insensitive platforms.

The first version was released in 1998, and stable feature releases have been released roughly every three to four months since. Linux and Unix support was re-added to CVSNT in early 2002.

From the project's inception until October 2002 CVSNT and CVS used identical version numbers and CVSNT was "kept in sync" with the features and code base of CVS. After October 2002, CVSNT began its own version sequence beginning with "2" to indicate significant departure from its CVS origins. Since that time, there has not been a stable feature release of CVS. However the unstable CVS 1.12 contains some of the oldest features originally implemented in CVSNT. Due to this shared history, all features from CVS 1.11 and most from 1.12 are included in CVSNT.

In 2003, the CVSNT SJIS project released a Japanese version of CVSNT including support for SJIS filenames and file encoding.

March Hare Software began sponsorship of the project in July 2004 to guarantee the project's future and to employ the original project manager on CVSNT development and commercial support.

In February 2005, the project servers moved to CVSNT version 2.5 and began unstable releases of a new server incorporating server plugins, ACLs, filename character set conversion as well as client/server autodiscovery. In October 2005, the first commercial CVS Suite was released, incorporating non-GPL addins and clients for CVSNT. In November 2005, CVSNT was enhanced to incorporate the features of the CVSNT SJIS project.

In March 2006, the project servers moved to CVSNT version 2.6 and began unstable releases of the new server backend. This backend incorporated a partial SQL database repository to facilitate better server performance and more complex server features.

The open source CVSNT project does not have a "project charter". This was a decision based on the observation that the charter prevented the CVS project from evolving CVS into a versioning system supporting modern CM best practice. The CVSNT project will continue to evolve the software as the scope of version management and CM changes, including changes to expand the supported methodologies.

The status of the project is active, with a final release of CVSNT 2.5 planned, and continuing evolution of CVSNT 2.6. CVSNT 3.1 is planned, and will implement a complete SQL database repository to support further complex server and client features. An RCS emulation layer is also planned for CVSNT 3.1 to support legacy systems.

[edit] Future Roadmap

March Hare plans to deliver the following features in CVSNT 3.1.01:[citation needed]

  • Atomic Commits
  • Database backend (no more RCS files)
  • RCS "interface" for legacy integrations

[edit] Related Software

[edit] GUI front-ends/clients

[edit] See also

Portal:Free software
 Free software Portal

[edit] External links

[edit] Literature

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