User:ArthurBarrett/CVSNT

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.

Features
CVSNT keeps 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 Windows. It is compatible with CVS clients and supports a large number of configuration management 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/UCS-2 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, HP-UX.
 * Supports reserved and unreserved versioning methodologies.
 * CVSAPI for integration into third-party products.
 * Script, COM and 3GL interface for triggers and integration into 3rd party tools (such as defect tracking)

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. When work was abandoned on CVSNT 2.6 and moved o EVS/CVSNT 3.1 the project server was moved back to 2.5.04.

In November 2008 the project released version 2.5.04 with support for multi site repository replication or 'local' repository caches and specific performance features for using large files use over a WAN. The project began advertising for contributors more aggressively including placing advertising in commit comments (which can be turned off).

In March 2010 the project released version 2.5.05 with a server that always runs in Unicode, native Windows crypt and schannel support and support for Internationalized Domain Names.

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 further releases of CVSNT 2.5 planned, and continuing evolution of CVSNT/EVS 3.1. CVSNT/EVS will implement a complete SQL database repository to support further complex server and client features. An RCS emulation layer is also planned for CVSNT/EVS 3.1 to support legacy systems.

Community Edition
On June 30th, 2010, March Hare retired the zero-dollar Community edition, however the commercial "CVS Suite" edition with a new CVSNT 2.8 release and support is actively developed and available from the web store , as are snapshots of the older community releases (unsupported, and a fee is required to download). Email support is available for customers but the community mailing list/newsgroup has been removed,

This decision has been criticised by several different people for differing reasons.

Reason 1: It was free and now it is not
Despite the Free Software Foundation and various CVSNT developers attempting to explain the difference between Zero-dollar software and Free Software, there is extensive criticism of March Hare Software's decision to change CVSNT from 'free' to 'paid'.

Users of CVSNT publicly claimed that given a business case that they could support the project financially and the vendor claims this is a part of the reason they switched to a paid-but-still-free model.

Reason 2: availability of the source code
The description of the public CVS server for source code was updated with the caveat "not guaranteed to be available 24x7, is provided by a volunteer and may be withdrawn at any time". People have claimed that this arrangement is a violation of the  GPL, It is probably insufficient to simply cite the GPLv2 Section 3 since a quick reading by does not suggest there is any obligation for the vendor to ensure that the download source is available 24x7.

People have also claimed that trial versions of the software are offered for download but do not come with the source code, or a written offer to receive the source code, which is explicitly required by the license, but this is refuted by counter claims by the vendor that CVS Suite 2009 Trial does install a link to the vendors web site with detailed information about how to obtain the source code.

Future roadmap
March Hare plans to deliver the following features in the next release :
 * Atomic Commits
 * Database backend (no more Revision Control System (RCS) files)
 * RCS "interface" for legacy integrating

Literature

 * March Hare Software: All About CVS: How to Design and Build an Effective CM solution using TortoiseCVS, WinCVS, Bugzilla on Windows and Linux (2005). web site
 * 大月美佳: 入門CVSNT CVSNT(CVS for NT)でつくるCVSクライアント/サーバ環境 (2004), ISBN 4-7980-0891-5, web site