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| Newer page: | version 2 | Last edited on Monday, June 15, 2009 5:59:15 pm | by LawrenceDoliveiro | Revert |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Sunday, February 1, 2009 2:41:26 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
A VersionControlSystem that uses inter-repository replication as the mechanism for collaboration. Each participant has a full copy of the repository and can exchange changesets freely with any other participant. Examples include [Git], Mercurial, Bazaar and darcs.
-This stands in contrast to a ''centralised'' VersionControlSystem, where there is only one repository stored on a central server, which serves as the hub for any collaboration: participants must push commits to this server and must fetch others' commits from it. This has many drawbacks. (AddToMe
) Examples include
[CVS
] and SubVersion
.
+This stands in contrast to a ''centralised'' VersionControlSystem, where there is only one repository stored on a central server, which serves as the hub for any collaboration: participants must push commits to this server and must fetch others' commits from it. This has many drawbacks:
+
+* Inability to work offline (with no access to the central server)
. While you can keep a working copy of the source tree, there is no way to maintain a private history of commits and branches.
+* Inability to exchange changesets between different groups working on different
(or related
) parts of the source tree, unless these changesets are made part of the official history recorded by the central server.
+
+Those accustomed to working with centralized VCSes may view the above as virtues rather than drawbacks; project-management culture has a lot to do with how the differences are perceived.
+
+EricRaymond's essay ''
[Understanding Version Control|http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html
]'' is a good backgrounder on VCS concepts
.
