BitKeeper - The Scalable Distributed Software Configuration Management System

"After using BitKeeper for just a week or two, I nearly stopped doing GCC development simply because CVS is such a dinosaur. It's like driving a model-T on a US interstate highway or the autobahn. It's truly that painful to use." -- David Miller, Red Hat.

CVS is in widespread use, mainly because it is free. It works fairly well for simple tasks, it's better than just using RCS. It has problems as the development effort gets large.
CVS has a single repository model. Each work area is clear text only which means no revision control in the work area during development.
No staging areas to protect the main source tree. With CVS, everyone checks into the same place and if someone breaks the tree, it's broken for everyone. With BitKeeper, you can put a staging area between each group of developers and the main integration tree, thereby protecting the main tree from bad checkins. Anyone who has lived through a change that broke the build can see the value of staging areas.
CVS loses information every time there is parallel development because you are forced to merge before you check in if someone else checked in first. The state of your workspace before the merge is lost forever. Another way to say this is that if there is N-way parallel development, CVS loses N-1 events.
Merging in CVS is primitive at best.
Branch management in CVS is a nightmare.
CVS has no change sets, i.e., no atomic commits of changes which span files.
CVS has no integrity checker which means files can be silently corrupted and you will never know until you try and roll backwards.
CVS has no rename support.
CVS was based on RCS and still has RCS' limitations.
On the plus side, CVS is free, works well enough for some development projects, and CVS repositories are easily converted to BitKeeper. If you can't afford a good source management product, use CVS, we'll help you migrate off of it when the time comes.

BitKeeper/CVS Feature Comparison

Download the BitKeeper/CVS Feature Comparison matrix (pdf)

Feature	BK/Pro	CVS	Benefit
Atomic ChangeSets	Yes	No	Every change is a reproducible snap shot Aids in debugging and release management
Graphical checkin tool	Yes	No	Graphical tool for file and changeset checkins which promotes more useful comments to speed up development processes and debugging
Dynamic branching	Yes	No	Any workspace can be turned into a branch Advanced planning for branching is not needed
Pro Merge Technology	Yes	No	Most accurate automerge available Only merge each change once
Accurate handling of renames	Always	No	Increased productivity through a well organized source base
Peer-to-peer architecture	Yes	No	Supports any workflow for enhanced quality control Supports the rapid open source style of development
Complete local history	Yes	No	Your developers can keep working even when your server or network doesn't Inherent reliability through replication
True parallel development	Yes	No	Enhanced productivity Faster time to market
Multi-site development	True	No	BitKeeper provides 100% functionality and productivity at all distributed sites
Mobile/Off-network functionality	Yes	No	Increased development productivity by allowing your developers to work while travelling, while at remote locations, while at customer sites, or without a network
Pre-event triggers	Yes	Weak	Ability to qualify events prior to changes which enhances compliance to your development policies
Post-event triggers	Yes	Weak	Supports notification of events and automated secondary operations which provides easier process management
Replicated repositories	Yes	No	Provides enhanced reliability along with the ability to perform transparent, automatic backups
Automatic integrity checks	Yes	No	Detects corruptions indicating potential hardware and software problems saving time and money associated with unplanned downtime
Accurate recording of all history	Yes	No	Accountability: Easy to find Who did What When Provides a complete picture of your parallel development Speeds of debugging process
Minimal Administration	Yes	Varies	Head count can be used for development rather than taking care of the SCM system
Minimal hardware requirements	Yes	Varies	No need to purchase additional hardware No requirement for large, expensive server

Home Products How to Buy Customers Downloads Support Privacy Policy Bug DB Site Map Contact Us