Difference Between CVS and Subversion

CVS vs. Subversion

Concurrent Versions System (also known as Concurrent Versioning System or CVS) is a free software revision control system –that is, it is a program that is open for use to the public that manages changes to documents, programs, and other information stored in computer files). It allows multiple developers to collaborate.

Subversion (also known as SVN) is a version control system used to maintain the current and preceding versions of files (like source code, web pages, and documentation). It is a direct upgrade of CVS and its most compatible successor. It is also an open source technology and has been widely used in multiple projects –such as Apache Software Foundation, Free Pascal, MediaWiki, and Google code.

CVS uses client server architecture –this means that a server stores a current version (or versions) of a particular project as well as saving its history. The client then connects to the server as means to ‘check out’ a copy of the project that has been completed prior to his connecting to the server. The client is then capable of working on this copy of the project and then checking the changes he has made later. As well as allowing one client to check in on a copy of a certain project, CVS allows multiple clients to work on and check in on the same project concurrently. The clients will be able to modify the files within their own working copy of the project and send these edits to the server.

Subversion commits –that is, creates a set of tentative changes and makes them permanent– as true atomic (or a series of data operations in which either everything occurs or nothing occurs) operations. Subversion also allows users to rename, copy, move, and/or remove files; however, those files will retain their full revision history. This system uses parsable output, natively client/server layered library design, and branching and tagging as cheap operations (independent of the size of the file). There are language bindings for PHP, Python, Perl, and Java. Subversion also costs according to the change size and not the size of the data.

CVS can maintain different branches of a project –that is to say, different aspects or permutations of the same project may branch off from the source project and CVS will maintain all versions (a released version of the project forms one branch for bug fixes, while a different version that is currently being developed may contain new features and major changes and form a branch of the same project, for example).

Summary:
1. CVS allows multiple users to collaborate on the same project; Subversion maintains the current and preceding versions of files.
2. CVS allows users to check in on the same project and modify it; Subversion commits as true atomic operations.
3. CVS can maintain different branches of a project; Subversion uses parsable output.

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