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(cvs.info)What is CVS?

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What is CVS?
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   CVS is a version control system.  Using it, you can record the
history of your source files.

   For example, bugs sometimes creep in when software is modified, and
you might not detect the bug until a long time after you make the
modification.  With CVS, you can easily retrieve old versions to see
exactly which change caused the bug.  This can sometimes be a big help.

   You could of course save every version of every file you have ever
created.  This would however waste an enormous amount of disk space.
CVS stores all the versions of a file in a single file in a clever way
that only stores the differences between versions.

   CVS also helps you if you are part of a group of people working on
the same project.  It is all too easy to overwrite each others' changes
unless you are extremely careful.  Some editors, like GNU Emacs, try to
make sure that the same file is never modified by two people at the
same time.  Unfortunately, if someone is using another editor, that
safeguard will not work.  CVS solves this problem by insulating the
different developers from each other.  Every developer works in his own
directory, and CVS merges the work when each developer is done.

   CVS started out as a bunch of shell scripts written by Dick Grune,
posted to the newsgroup `comp.sources.unix' in the volume 6 release of
December, 1986.  While no actual code from these shell scripts is
present in the current version of CVS much of the CVS conflict
resolution algorithms come from them.

   In April, 1989, Brian Berliner designed and coded CVS.  Jeff Polk
later helped Brian with the design of the CVS module and vendor branch
support.

   You can get CVS in a variety of ways, including free download from
the internet.  For more information on downloading CVS and other CVS
topics, see:

     http://www.cvshome.org/
     http://www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs-index.html

   There is a mailing list, known as `info-cvs', devoted to CVS.  To
subscribe or unsubscribe write to `info-cvs-request@gnu.org'.  If you
prefer a usenet group, the right group is `comp.software.config-mgmt'
which is for CVS discussions (along with other configuration management
systems).  In the future, it might be possible to create a
`comp.software.config-mgmt.cvs', but probably only if there is
sufficient CVS traffic on `comp.software.config-mgmt'.

   You can also subscribe to the bug-cvs mailing list, described in
more detail in Note: BUGS.  To subscribe send mail to
bug-cvs-request@gnu.org.