Requirements? Jonathan S. Shapiro (shap@eros-os.org)
Tue, 11 Apr 2000 18:47:04 -0400

Okay. I wanted to hold off a day to let people from other lists join in, but let's kick off a requirements discussion.

Here are the requirements that *I* see:

Replicated repository -- it should be possible to obtain consistent checkouts (though not always the most recent) from any repository replicate. Replication should be controllable on a project by project basis. This implies that entities in the repository need universally unique names.

Subordinate repository -- it should be possible to clone a project (or the recent history of one) to my workstation/portable, work there disconnected with all management features available, and then re-sync the changes back to a master repository.

Configurations, not files -- the CM system should consider a "commit" to be a complete new image of the project (though many files will probably be unchanged) as opposed to a set of changes/additions/deletions to individual files.

Programmability -- it should be possible to embed trigger scripts in a project. These scripts should run successfully on all platforms.

Frankly, CVS is pretty good. It fails (for me) on the last three requirements.

One NON-requirement: build control. This is a fine thing to pursue, but I'ld like to start by getting configurations of blobs right first.

That's a start. Let's have at it!