Version control systems have become an essential part of a software developers life. There are several open source version control systems availabe today which are as good as or better than commerical ones. Selecting a version control system that suits your project needs is another pain. Here is a list of some of the best open source version control systems.
1. CVS – Open Source Version Control
CVS uses a client-server architecture: a server stores the current version(s) of a 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. Typically, the client and server connect over a LAN or over the Internet, but client and server may both run on the same machine if CVS has the task of keeping track of the version history of a project with only local developers.
2. Subversion
Subversion (SVN) is a version control system initiated in 1999 by CollabNet Inc. It is used to maintain current and historical versions of files such as source code, web pages, and documentation. Its goal is to be a mostly-compatible successor to the widely used Concurrent Versions System (CVS).
3. Git
Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
4. Mercurial
Mercurial is a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system designed for efficient handling of very large distributed projects.
5. Bazaar
Bazaar is a version control system that helps you track project history over time and to collaborate easily with others. Whether you re a single developer, a co-located team or a community of developers scattered across the world, Bazaar scales and adapts to meet your needs. There s no need to choose between central and distributed version control tools: Bazaar directly supports many workflows with ease.
6. LibreSource
LibreSource is an Open Source web portal, gathering in one place all the necessary tools to share and communicate within your project team.
Particularly adapted for software development, community management and web publishing, LibreSource aims at facilitating the coordination of collaborative projects and reducing their cost.
7. Monotone
Monotone is a free distributed version control system. It provides a simple, single-file transactional version store, with fully disconnected operation and an efficient peer-to-peer synchronization protocol. It understands history-sensitive merging, lightweight branches, integrated code review and 3rd party testing.
8. Fossil
Fossil is a distributed version control system, bug tracking system and wiki software server for use in software development.
Fossil uses HTTP as its wire protocol, and stores its data in an SQLite database to ensure atomicity in any commits.
Fossil is cross-platform; its source code compiles on Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
Nice article…which is one mostly used now? Git or CVS?
I have mostly seen several big projects using CVS. I have seen a very few projects using Git.
I think CVS is used because of legacy reasons, SVN is much better choice than CVS. Although Git has more and more followers, I would say that Git is good for open source projects, but if you need a centralized repository, SVN is quite better choice.
Most projects I see use Subversion, which is imho much better than CVS.
We run a Microsoft environment and use VisualSVN (http://www.visualsvn.com/visualsvn/). Makes installing and managing SVN pretty easy. They advertise the Visual Studio support, but I use it with Subclipse and Tortoise.