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I know this is a stupid question but I am confused about it. Thanks.

Gorion wrote:I know this is a stupid question but I am confused about it. Thanks.

CVS stands for "Concurrent Versions System" (http://www.cvshome.org/). It is a tool programmers use to manage source code. If you are not a developer (or someone who wants to be one), that's all you need to know. CVS allows multiple people to work on the same source code at the same time. If you and I are working on blender together we would both get a copy of the source from CVS. I could modify some of the source and "check in" (put back into CVS) my updates. Then you could run an update on your side to get my changes. If we both have modified the same files it merges them together so we get both sets of changes. It also allows to get revision history so you can see what has changed in the source over time. In general it makes working with multiple developers on a large project much easier.

beergeek wrote:

Gorion wrote:I know this is a stupid question but I am confused about it. Thanks.

If you and I are working on blender together we would both get a copy of the source from CVS. I could modify some of the source and "check in" (put back into CVS) my updates. Then you could run an update on your side to get my changes. If we both have modified the same files it merges them together so we get both sets of changes. It also allows to get revision history so you can see what has changed in the source over time. In general it makes working with multiple developers on a large project much easier.

Isn't this going to become a big mess? It can work in an organized project on a company, where everyone has it's own piece assigned to him.

But with so many people working on blender, relatively unorganized, there has to be some moderation, which I know will be done in this case, but that will be a hell of a task...
But maybe I am wrong on this.
Are there other open source projects that also use CVS?

Almost every open source projects use CVS. Actually, I cannot think of any projects that do NOT use CVS...

It is a very nice tool to manage the "mess" you are talking about. The important thing is to not let EVERYONE have write access, since its dangerous (security-wise, people could add trojan in the code, for example) and it would make the project unmanageable). One way that seems to work great is to have a patch depository, and then some responsibles (the main developers) for the project apply (or not) the patch.

Most of the Blender USERS (read: not developers) shouldn't have to worry about CVS and all, as they will, most likely, prefer for a build. They way they can contribute is by submitting bugs. I guess Blender is best using Mozilla's Bugzilla. CVS is always too bleeding edge for stable production environment.

Look at other big projects on sourceforge, (www.sourceforge.net) for example, to see how they work...

NamShub