Artifact 30f3834664c0cc86c0a66fe34f648769261fca56
File
www/index.html
part of check-in
[b807acf62e]
- Documentation updates
by
drh on
2007-07-24 12:52:32.
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<title>Fossil SCM Homepage</title>
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<h1>Fossil - A Software Configuration Management System</h1>
<p>
This is a preliminary homepage for a new software configuration
management system called "Fossil".
The code is currently under development, and has been for about
two years. (We have iterated the design multiple times.)
Nothing is available for download or inspection
as of this writing (2007-07-24).
But the system is self-hosting now.
Hopefully something will be available soon.
</p>
<p>Design Goals For Fossil:</p>
<ul>
<li>Supports disconnected, distributed development (like
<a href="http://kerneltrap.org/node/4982">git</a>,
<a href="http://www.venge.net/monotone/">monotone</a>,
<a href="http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi">mercurial</a>, or
<a href="http://www.bitkeeper.com/">bitkeeper</a>)
or client/server operation (like
<a href="http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/">CVS</a> or
<a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/">subversion</a>)
or both at the same time</li>
<li>Integrated bug tracking and wiki, along the lines of
<a href="http://www.cvstrac.org/">CVSTrac</a> and
<a href="http://www.edgewall.com/trac/">Trac</a>.</li>
<li>Built-in web interface that supports deep archaeological digs through
historical source code.</li>
<li>All network communication via HTTP (so that everything works
from behind restrictive firewalls).</li>
<li>Everything included in a single self-contained executable -
trivial to install</li>
<li>Server runs as <a href="http://www.w3.org/CGI/">CGI</a>, using
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inetd">inetd</a> or
<a href="http://www.xinetd.org/">xinetd</a> or using its own built-in,
standalone web server.</li>
<li>An entire project contained in single disk file (which also
happens to be an <a href="http://www.sqlite.org/">SQLite</a> database.)</li>
<li>Trivial to setup and administer</li>
<li>Files and versions identified by their
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1">SHA1</a> signature.</a>
Any unique prefix is sufficient to identify a file
or version - usually the first 4 or 5 characters suffice.</li>
<li>The file format is trival and requires nothing more complex
than a text editor and the "sha1sum" command-line utility to decode.</li>
<li>Automatic <a href="selfcheck.html">self-check</a>
on repository changes makes it exceedingly
unlikely that data will ever be lost because of a software bug.</li>
</ul>
<p>Objectives Of Fossil:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fossil should be ridiculously easy to install and operate.</li>
<li>With fossil, it should be possible (and easy) to set up a project
on an inexpensive shared-hosting ISP
(example: <a href="http://www.he.net/hosting.html">Hurricane Electric</a>)
that provides nothing more than web space and CGI capability.</li>
<li>Fossil should provide in-depth historical and status information about the
project through a web interface</li>
<li>The integration of <a href="http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki">Wiki</a>
and the ability to safely support anonymous check-in are features sometimes
described as
<a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html">Web 2.0</a>.
Fossil attempts to better capture "collective intelligence" and
"the wisdom of crowds" by opening up write access to the masses.</li>
</ul>
<p>Links:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="pop.html">Principals Of Operation</a></li>
<li>The <a href="selfcheck.html">automatic self-check</a> mechanism
helps insure project integrity.</li>
<li>The <a href="fileformat.html">file format</a> used by every content
file stored in the repository.</li>
</ul>
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