xref: /openbsd/gnu/usr.bin/cvs/README (revision 3cab2bb3)
1				CVS Kit
2
3		Copyright (c) 1993-1994 Brian Berliner
4	   Copyright (c) 1992 Brian Berliner and Jeff Polk
5	       Copyright (c) 1989-1992, Brian Berliner
6			 All Rights Reserved
7
8    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
9    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
10    the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
11    any later version.
12
13    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
16    GNU General Public License for more details.
17
18-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
19
20Welcome to CVS!
21
22If you have problems or think you have found a bug in CVS, see the
23section BUGS in the CVS manual (also known as Version Management with
24CVS by Per Cederqvist et al, or cvs.texinfo--see below for details).
25
26If you are thinking of submitting changes to CVS, see the
27file HACKING.
28
29Please consult the INSTALL file for information on tested
30configurations.  If you have a comment about an already tested
31configuration, or have tried CVS on a new configuration, please let us
32know as described in INSTALL.  Free software only works if we all help
33out.
34
35Finally, we cannot guarantee that this release will not completely wipe out
36all of your work from your system.  We do some simple testing before each
37release, but you are completely on your own.  We recommend testing this
38release on a source repository that is not critical to your work.  THIS
39SOFTWARE IS SUPPLIED COMPLETELY "AS IS".  NO WARRANTY....
40
41Thanks for your support!
42
43	-The CVS Team
44
45-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
46
47What Is CVS?
48
49CVS is a version control system, which allows you to keep old versions
50of files (usually source code), keep a log of who, when, and why
51changes occurred, etc., like RCS or SCCS.  It handles multiple
52developers, multiple directories, triggers to enable/log/control
53various operations, and can work over a wide area network.  The
54following tasks are not included; they can be done in conjunction with
55CVS but will tend to require some script-writing and software other
56than CVS: bug-tracking, build management (that is, make and make-like
57tools), and automated testing.
58
59And a whole lot more.  See the manual for more information.
60
61-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
62
63Notes to people upgrading from a previous release of CVS:
64
65See the NEWS file for a description of features new in this version.
66
67See the Compatibility section of the manual for information on
68compatibility between CVS versions.  The quick summary is that as long
69as you not using the optional watch features, there are no
70compatibility problems with CVS 1.5 or later.
71
72-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
73
74Installation:
75
76Please read the INSTALL file for installation instructions.  Brief summary:
77
78	$ ./configure
79	$ make
80	(run the regression tests if desired)
81	$ make install
82	(create a repository if you don't already have one)
83
84The documentation is in the doc subdirectory.  cvs.texinfo is the main
85manual; cvs.info* and cvs.ps are the info and postscript versions,
86respectively, generated from cvs.texinfo.  The postscript version is
87for US letter size paper; we do this not because we consider this size
88"better" than A4, but because we believe that the US letter version
89will print better on A4 paper than the other way around. If you want a
90version formatted for A4, add the line @afourpaper near the start of
91cvs.texinfo and re-generate cvs.ps using TeX.
92
93-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
94
95* How do I get up-to-date information and information about other
96versions of CVS?
97
98On the web, http://www.loria.fr/~molli/cvs-index.html.
99
100See also
101	http://www.cvshome.org
102
103The mailing list for CVS is info-cvs@gnu.org.  Send
104subscription and removal requests for that list to
105info-cvs-request@gnu.org.
106
107The newsgroup for CVS (and other configuration management systems) is
108comp.software.config-mgmt.  There is not yet a CVS-specific newsgroup,
109but perhaps if comp.software.config-mgmt gets enough CVS discussion,
110then it will be possible to create one.
111
112-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
113
114Credits:
115
116The conflict-resolution algorithms and much of the administrative file
117definitions of CVS were based on the original package written by Dick Grune
118at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam <dick@cs.vu.nl>, and posted to
119comp.sources.unix in the volume 6 release sometime in 1986.  This original
120version was a collection of shell scripts.  I am thankful that Dick made
121his work available.
122
123Brian Berliner from Prisma, Inc. (now at Sun Microsystems, Inc.)
124<berliner@sun.com> converted the original CVS shell scripts into reasonably
125fast C and added many, many features to support software release control
126functions.  See the manual page in the "man" directory.  A copy of the
127USENIX article presented at the Winter 1990 USENIX Conference, Washington
128D.C., is included in the "doc" directory.
129
130Jeff Polk from BSDI <polk@bsdi.com> converted the CVS 1.2
131sources into much more readable and maintainable C code.  He also added a
132whole lot of functionality and modularity to the code in the process.
133See the bottom of the NEWS file (from about 1992).
134
135david d `zoo' zuhn <zoo@armadillo.com> contributed the working base code
136for CVS 1.4 Alpha.  His work carries on from work done by K. Richard Pixley
137and others at Cygnus Support.  The CVS 1.4 upgrade is due in large part to
138Zoo's efforts.
139
140David G. Grubbs <dgg@odi.com> contributed the CVS "history" and "release"
141commands.  As well as the ever-so-useful "-n" option of CVS which tells CVS
142to show what it would do, without actually doing it.  He also contributed
143support for the .cvsignore file.
144
145The Free Software Foundation (GNU) contributed most of the portability
146framework that CVS now uses.  This can be found in the "configure" script,
147the Makefile's, and basically most of the "lib" directory.
148
149K. Richard Pixley, Cygnus Support <rich@cygnus.com> contributed many bug
150fixes/enhancement as well as completing early reviews of the CVS 1.3 manual
151pages.
152
153Roland Pesch, then of Cygnus Support <roland@wrs.com> contributed
154brand new cvs(1) and cvs(5) manual pages.  Thanks to him for saving us
155from poor use of our language!
156
157Paul Sander, HaL Computer Systems, Inc. <paul@hal.com> wrote and
158contributed the code in lib/sighandle.c.  I added support for POSIX, BSD,
159and non-POSIX/non-BSD systems.
160
161Jim Kingdon and others at Cygnus Support <info@cygnus.com> wrote the
162remote repository access code.
163
164There have been many, many contributions not listed here.  Consult the
165ChangeLog files in each directory for a more complete idea.
166
167In addition to the above contributors, the following Beta testers
168deserve special mention for their support.  This is only a partial
169list; if you have helped in this way and would like to be listed, let
170bug-cvs know (as described in the Cederqvist manual).
171
172	Mark D. Baushke <mdb@cisco.com>
173	Per Cederqvist <ceder@signum.se>
174	J.T. Conklin <jtc@cygnus.com>
175	Vince DeMarco <vdemarco@fdcsrvr.cs.mci.com>
176	Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com>
177	Lal George <george@research.att.com>
178	Dean E. Hardi <Dean.E.Hardi@ccmail.jpl.nasa.gov>
179	Mike Heath <mike@pencom.com>
180	Jim Kingdon <kingdon@cygnus.com>
181	Bernd Leibing <bernd.leibing@rz.uni-ulm.de>
182	Benedict Lofstedt <benedict@tusc.com.au>
183	Dave Love <d.love@dl.ac.uk>
184	Robert Lupton the Good <rhl@astro.princeton.edu>
185	Tom McAliney <tom@hilco.com>
186	Eberhard Mattes <mattes@azu.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>
187	Jim Meyering <meyering@comco.com>
188	Thomas Mohr <mohr@lts.sel.alcatel.de>
189	Thomas Nilsson <thoni@softlab.se>
190	Raye Raskin <raye.raskin@lia.com>
191	Harlan Stenn <harlan@landmark.com>
192	Gunnar Tornblom <gunnar.tornblom@senet.abb.se>
193	Greg A. Woods <woods@planix.com>
194
195Many contributors have added code to the "contrib" directory.  See the
196README file there for a list of what is available.  There is also a
197contributed GNU Emacs CVS-mode in tools/pcl-cvs.
198