<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Preface</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css" type="text/css" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.73.2" /><link rel="start" href="index.html" title="Version Control with Subversion" /><link rel="up" href="index.html" title="Version Control with Subversion" /><link rel="prev" href="svn.foreword.html" title="Foreword" /><link rel="next" href="svn.preface.audience.html" title="Audience" /></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Preface</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="svn.foreword.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="svn.preface.audience.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="preface" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="svn.preface"></a>Preface</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.audience.html">Audience</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.howread.html">How to Read this Book</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.conventions.html">Conventions Used in This Book</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.preface.conventions.html#svn.preface.conventions.typo">Typographic Conventions</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.preface.conventions.html#svn.preface.conventions.icons">Icons</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.organization.html">Organization of This Book</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.free.html">This Book is Free</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.preface.acks.html">Acknowledgments</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.preface.acks.html#svn.preface.acks.sussman">From Ben Collins-Sussman</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.preface.acks.html#svn.preface.acks.fitz">From Brian W. Fitzpatrick</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.preface.acks.html#svn.preface.acks.cmpilato">From C. Michael Pilato</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html">What is Subversion?</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.righttool">Is Subversion the Right Tool?</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.history">Subversion's History</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.features">Subversion's Features</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.architecture">Subversion's Architecture</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="svn.intro.whatis.html#svn.intro.components">Subversion's Components</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><div class="blockquote"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="blockquote" summary="Block quote"><tr><td width="10%" valign="top"> </td><td width="80%" valign="top"><p>“<span class="quote">It is important not to let the perfect become the
enemy of the good, even when you can agree on what perfect is.
Doubly so when you can't. As unpleasant as it is to be trapped by
past mistakes, you can't make any progress by being afraid of your
own shadow during design.</span>”</p></td><td width="10%" valign="top"> </td></tr><tr><td width="10%" valign="top"> </td><td colspan="2" align="right" valign="top">--<span class="attribution">Greg Hudson</span></td></tr></table></div><p>
<a id="id298012" class="indexterm"></a>
In the world of open-source software, the Concurrent Versions
System (CVS) was the tool of choice for version control for many
years. And rightly so. CVS was open-source software itself, and
its non-restrictive modus operandi and support for networked
operation allowed dozens of geographically dispersed programmers
to share their work. It fit the collaborative nature of the
open-source world very well. CVS and its semi-chaotic development
model have since become cornerstones of open-source
culture.</p><p>But CVS was not without its flaws, and simply fixing those
flaws promised to be an enormous effort. Enter Subversion.
Designed to be a successor to CVS, Subversion's originators set
out to win the hearts of CVS users in two ways—by creating
an open-source system with a design (and “<span class="quote">look and
feel</span>”) similar to CVS, and by attempting to avoid most of
CVS's noticeable flaws. While the result isn't necessarily the
next great evolution in version control design, Subversion
<span class="emphasis"><em>is</em></span> very powerful, very usable, and very
flexible. And for the most part, almost all newly-started
open-source projects now choose Subversion instead of CVS.</p><p>This book is written to document the 1.5 series of the
Subversion version control system. We have made every attempt to
be thorough in our coverage. However, Subversion has a thriving
and energetic development community, so there are already a number
of features and improvements planned for future versions of
Subversion that may change some of the commands and specific notes
in this book.</p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="svn.foreword.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"> </td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="svn.preface.audience.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Foreword </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Audience</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
