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History of software configuration management
open-in-new
<h2 id="timeline">Timeline</h2> <ul><li>Early 1960s or even late 1950s: CDC UPDATE and IBM IEB_UPDATE.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a></li> <li>Late 1960s into 1970s: <a href="/facts/The_Librarian_(version_control_system)/AojrndyX">The Librarian</a> is released by <a href="/facts/Applied_Data_Research/qgq5HRDr">Applied Data Research</a> and provides an alternative to keeping programs on punched card decks for the <a href="/facts/IBM_mainframe/0kPkgADx">IBM mainframe</a> market.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a></li> <li>Late 1960s, early 1970s: Professor Leon Pressor at the <a href="/facts/University_of_California,_Santa_Barbara/G7UvBWlK">University of California, Santa Barbara</a> produced a thesis on change and configuration control. This concept was a response to a contract he was working on with a defense contractor who made aircraft engines for the <a href="/facts/US_Navy/xYK0fUou">US Navy</a>.</li> <li>Early 1970s: <a href="/facts/Unix/0pNL2seI">Unix</a> <a href="/facts/Make_(software)/5q1DQ4ot">make</a>.</li> <li>By 1970 CDC update was an advanced product.</li> <li>Circa 1972: <a href="/facts/Bell_Labs/fKP5Gk0H">Bell Labs</a> paper describing the original <a href="/facts/Diff/MtzRWwql">diff</a> algorithm.</li> <li>1972, with an <a href="/facts/IEEE/UddC4pUW">IEEE</a> paper in 1975: source code control system, <a href="/facts/Source_Code_Control_System/v85GIeBx">SCCS</a>, <a href="/facts/Marc_Rochkind/TL0j2Tro">Marc Rochkind</a> Bell Labs. Originally programmed in <a href="/facts/SNOBOL/cdF7ezMJ">SNOBOL</a> for <a href="/facts/OS/360/nQbdNbx6">OS/360</a>; subsequently rewritten in <a href="/facts/C_(programming_language)/Ky2No763">C</a> for Unix (used diff for comparing files).</li> <li>1970s: <a href="/facts/Lisle,_Illinois/D3D2MsCo">Lisle, Illinois</a>-based <a href="/facts/Pansophic_Systems/b4oxfUDT">Pansophic Systems</a> offered PANVALET, which was an early source code control system for the mainframe market.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a></li> <li>1975: Professor Pressor's work eventually grew into a commercially available product called Change and Configuration Control (CCC) which was sold by the SoftTool corporation.</li> <li>Revision Control System (<a href="/facts/Revision_Control_System/9rHoEV5Y">RCS</a>, Walter Tichy).</li> <li>Early 1980s: <a href="/facts/Patch_(Unix)/9tFn5GeU">patch</a> (around 1985, <a href="/facts/Larry_Wall/gF8DqA5h">Larry Wall</a>).</li> <li>1984: Aide-de-Camp</li> <li>1986: Concurrent Version System (<a href="/facts/Concurrent_Versions_System/PKnqSra2">CVS</a>).</li> <li>2000: <a href="/facts/Subversion_(software)/b5j9wAbt">Subversion</a> initiated by <a href="/facts/CollabNet/cCdC0xPY">CollabNet</a>.</li> <li>Early 2000s (decade): <a href="/facts/Distributed_revision_control/PDAlqzRE">distributed revision control</a> systems like BitKeeper and <a href="/facts/GNU/HlAKKBdt">GNU</a> arch become viable.</li></ul> <h2 id="background">Background</h2> <p>Until the 1980s, SCM could only be understood as <i>CM</i> applied to software development.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> Some basic concepts such as <i>identification</i> and <i>baseline</i> (well-defined point in the evolution of a project) were already clear, but what was at stake was a set of techniques oriented towards the <i>control</i> of the activity, and using formal processes, documents, request forms, control boards etc. </p><p>It is only after this date that the use of software <i>tools</i> applying directly to software <i>artefacts</i> representing the actual resources, has allowed SCM to grow as an autonomous entity (from traditional CM). </p><p>The use of different tools has actually led to very distinct emphases. </p> <ul><li>traditional CM for Software, typically around <a href="/facts/Change_management/lqReblGf">Change Management</a> (examples: <a href="/facts/Continuus/ysWClyeT">Continuus</a>, <a href="/facts/Concurrent_Versions_System/PKnqSra2">CVS</a> or ClearCase UCM)</li> <li>line oriented management, based on patches or Change Sets</li> <li>focused on <a href="/facts/Derived_Object/AzKJeNwU">Derived Objects</a> and Build Management (example: <a href="/facts/Rational_ClearCase/n2A6TAVS">Base ClearCase</a>/clearmake)</li></ul> <h2 id="evolution">Evolution</h2> <h3>First generation</h3> <p>SCCS (first released in 1973) and DSEE (considered a predecessor of <a href="/facts/Rational_ClearCase/n2A6TAVS">Atria ClearCase</a>), described in 1984,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> are two other notable VCS software tools. These tools, along with <a href="/facts/Revision_Control_System/9rHoEV5Y">Revision Control System</a> (RCS), are generally considered the first generation of VCS as automated software tools.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a> </p> <h3>Second generation</h3> <p>After the first generation <a href="/facts/Version_control_system/pxCmFXqK">VCS</a>, tools such as <a href="/facts/Concurrent_Versions_System/PKnqSra2">CVS</a> and <a href="/facts/Apache_Subversion/b5j9wAbt">Subversion</a>, which feature a locally centralized repository, could be considered as the second generation VCS. Specifically, CVS (Concurrent Versions System) was developed on top of RCS structure, improving scalability of the tool for larger groups, and later PRCS,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a> a simpler CVS-like tool which also uses RCS-like files, but improves upon the delta compression by using <a href="/facts/Xdelta/4RBrx7up">Xdelta</a> instead. </p><p>By 2006 or so, Subversion was considered to be the most popular and widely in use VCS tool from this generation and filled important weaknesses of CVS.[<i>according to whom?</i>] Later SVK developed with the goal of remote contribution feature, but still the foundation of its design were similar to its predecessors.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a> </p> <h3>Third generation</h3> <p>As Internet connectivity improved and geographically distributed software development became more common, tools emerged that did not rely on a shared central project repository. These allow users to maintain independent repositories (or <a href="/facts/Fork_(software_development)/D6khxhpr">forks</a>) of a project and communicate revisions via <a href="/facts/Changeset/zPvGrzmF">changesets</a>. <a href="/facts/BitKeeper/fahCmdSd">BitKeeper</a>, <a href="/facts/Git/U5Ty9QmQ">Git</a>, <a href="/facts/Monotone_(software)/2Vk2E4hF">Monotone</a>, <a href="/facts/Darcs/12vMLFET">darcs</a>, <a href="/facts/Mercurial/lEkoYb6C">Mercurial</a>, and <a href="/facts/GNU_Bazaar/TQ3AEzcS">bzr</a> are some examples of third generation version control systems.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a> </p> <h2 id="see-also">See also</h2> <ul><li><a href="/facts/Revision_control/pxCmFXqK">Revision control</a> – Managing versions of source code or dataPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>"1988 "A Guide to Understanding Configuration Management in Trusted Systems" National Computer Security System (via Google) <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CScMNjwwK8UC&q=configuration+management+systems" target="_blank">https://books.google.com/books?id=CScMNjwwK8UC&q=configuration+management+systems</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>"Obsolete: Configuration Management Frequently Asked Questions". <a href="http://www.daveeaton.com/scm/CMFAQ.html" target="_blank">http://www.daveeaton.com/scm/CMFAQ.html</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Goetz, Martin (3 May 2002). "An Interview with Martin Goetz" (Interview). Interviewed by Jeffrey R. Yost. Washington, D.C.: Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. pp. 5–7. Retrieved 26 May 2023. <a href="https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107328" target="_blank">https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107328</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Oral history interview with Joseph Piscopo, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota. Piscopo founded Pansophic Systems in 1969 and led it until his retirement in 1987. Interview discusses the development of Panvalet and the acquisition of Easytrieve. <a href="http://purl.umn.edu/107601" target="_blank">http://purl.umn.edu/107601</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>J.K. Buckle (1982). Software Configuration Management. ISBN 0-333-30719-4. <a href="0-333-30719-4" target="_blank">0-333-30719-4</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>Leblang, David B.; Chase, Robert P. (May 1984). "Computer-Aided Software Engineering in a distributed workstation environment". ACM SIGPLAN Notices. 19 (5): 104–112. doi:10.1145/390011.808255. <a href="https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/390011.808255" target="_blank">https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/390011.808255</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>Raymond, Eric. "Understanding Version-Control Systems (DRAFT)". www.catb.org. Retrieved 13 February 2017. <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html" target="_blank">http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>MacDonald, Joshua P (9 May 2004). "PRCS, the Project Revision Control System". Retrieved 29 October 2021. <a href="http://prcs.sourceforge.net/" target="_blank">http://prcs.sourceforge.net/</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>Raymond, Eric. "Understanding Version-Control Systems (DRAFT)". www.catb.org. Retrieved 13 February 2017. <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html" target="_blank">http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>Raymond, Eric. "Understanding Version-Control Systems (DRAFT)". www.catb.org. Retrieved 13 February 2017. <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html" target="_blank">http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/version-control/version-control.html</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>