Concurrent Versions System
| Developer(s) | The CVS Team |
|---|---|
| Initial release | November 19, 1990 |
| Stable release |
1.11.23 / May 8, 2008
|
| Preview release |
1.12.13 / July 26, 2006
|
| Repository | [cvs://anonymous@cvs.sv.gnu.org/sources/cvs cvs |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Unix-like, Windows |
| Type | Revision control |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | savannah |
The Concurrent Versions System (CVS), also known as the Concurrent Versioning System, is a client-server free software revision control system in the field of software development. A version control system keeps track of all work and all changes in a set of files, and allows several developers (potentially widely separated in space and time) to collaborate. Dick Grune developed CVS as a series of shell scripts in July 1986.
In addition to commercial software developers, CVS became popular with the open source software world and was released under the GNU General Public License. While there was regular development to add features and fix bugs in the past, including regular builds and test results, there have been no new releases since 2008.
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. The server software normally runs on Unix (although at least the CVSNT server also supports various flavours of Microsoft Windows), while CVS clients may run on any major operating-system platform.
Several developers may work on the same project concurrently, each one editing files within their own "working copy" of the project, and sending (or checking in) their modifications to the server. To avoid conflicts, the server only accepts changes made to the most recent version of a file. Developers are therefore expected to keep their working copy up-to-date by incorporating other people's changes on a regular basis. This task is mostly handled automatically by the CVS client, requiring manual intervention only when an edit conflict arises between a checked-in modification and the yet-unchecked local version of a file.
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