Subversion joins forces with Apache

By David Rubinstein

November 4, 2009 — Subversion has been used in tight stacks with Apache Software Foundation projects such as Maven and Tomcat. Today, the open-source software configuration management system becomes part of Apache with the announcement that the project has been accepted into the Apache Incubator, where projects first go on their way to top-level project status.

There is a great amount of synergy between the two entities, as the communities work closely together and all of Apache’s projects use Subversion for code version control, according to Bill Portelli, CEO of CollabNet, which began the Subversion project nearly 10 years ago. The move to Apache, he said, was a couple of years in the making.

“There is such an overlap between the Subversion and Apache communities,” he said. “They use common file servers and Web servers. About 15 core Apache developers are core Subversion developers, so it was a natural progression.”

A goal of the move is to amplify and accelerate Subversion development by putting it out into a wide community of contributors, Portelli said, while noting that CollabNet still wants to maintain its leadership in the project. “Of the top 20 developers who committed code [to Subversion], 80% are CollabNet or ex-CollabNet developers,” he said, adding that the company will continue to invest in development and marketing.

“At the end of the day, it’s really just a URL change for developers."

“Since its inception, the Subversion community has modeled itself using many of the Foundation’s principles, including the Apache license, our voting structure, and building upon a diverse range of contributors,” said Justin Erenkrantz, president of the Apache Software Foundation, in a statement released at ApacheCon in Oakland today. “It’s a natural fit.”

The Subversion project will eventually migrate from its site to the Apache site. Certified binaries still will be available from third-party sites such as CollabNet, the corporate sponsor of Subversion, Portelli said. It is those binaries, he added, that separate what CollabNet is offering around Subversion from the efforts of other companies.

CollabNet pulled together the first team of developers to work on Subversion in 2000 as a means to create a replacement to the CVS version control system, which was quite limiting. CollabNet enlisted Karl Fogel and Jim Blandy (who came up with the name), who were already running a company that supported CVS installations. The 1.0 release of Subversion occurred in February, 2004. Version 1.6.6 dropped in October, and the group is working toward a 2.0 release.

Related Search Term(s): Apache, Subversion

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Comments

11/05/2009 09:46:53 AM EST

Subversion is a fine tool that I use daily only to get me by until I have all my projects converted to the far superior git-scm.com, maybe Apache should reconsider git?

United StatesJacob Christ

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