Big companies using Subversion

下面的讨论摘自svn的mail-list.其中的一些观点很有趣，如svn本身就是为open source设计的，
所以对于权限管理，认证方面可以马虎一下。。。。。。

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 14:52:53 CEST

Hello,

I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
Control System.

I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
and why this choice.

Best regards,
Anthony
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Andy Levy <andy.levy_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:00:18 CEST

On 9/12/06, Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller@hyperoffice.fr> wrote:

> I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
> Control System.
>
> I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
> and why this choice.

Must it be companies, or will large-scale open source projects meet
your needs? There quite a few of those around (Apache & KDE to name
two).

Unfortunately, many "large" companies prefer to give vendors large
sums of money for software, even if something free like Subversion
supports their requirements. Too many are still stuck in the mindset
of "if we paid a lot of money for it, it must be better than something
that cost us $0." Also, in many large companies there are multiple
groups doing development, and each might be using a different tool.

I know there are a couple people with General Electric email addresses
on this and the TortoiseSVN mailing lists, and their info indicates
they're with GE Infrastructure; I have no idea how large that division
is.

My employer is fairly small, but we're large-ish for the industry we're in.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:03:46 CEST

Thanks for reply!

I need well-known companies to give a clue that such big companies already
gives confidence into Subversion.

Apache, KDE and General Electric are good to illustrate this! :o)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Grant Rettke <grettke_at_acm.org>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:13:56 CEST

You shouldn't use this kind of argument to convince folks to use
Subversion .

You should work as the repository administrator for at least 12 months
while using it on a real project on which you are working, and also
have other teams use that same repository. Get past the "romance" stage
of using Subversion
and get to the point where you actually have to deal with its strengths and
weaknesses. Then, decide for yourself whether or not it is worth it.

If you want to convince people to use some technology because "big companie
s" use it, then an easy argument is to use Microsoft.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sheryl <gubydala_at_his.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 17:04:15 CEST

> If you want to convince people to use some technology because "big
> companie
> s"
> use it, then an easy argument is to use Microsoft.

To be sure there is something of the "herd mentality" in business. But
there's also the legitimate concern that if something isn't in wide use
and doesn't have paid support available then they'll be in trouble if the
guy who installs and supports it leaves. Or that if something is used
only by small groups that it won't scale.

It's useful to look upon questions like this from management as due
dilligence and an inquiry into "best practices". Lots of people have been
burned over the years by an employee who promoted a "shaggy dog" product
that turned out not to be what was promised. This has been true of
purchased products at least as much as open source/free software.

Sheryl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Grant Rettke <grettke_at_acm.org>
Date: 2006-09-12 18:28:54 CEST

Hi Sheryl, totally understood. One approach is to hire commodity
developers, stick with commodity technologies, and minimize risks.
Another approach is to hire excellent developers, rely on your
developers to make technical decisions, and in doing so minimize risk.
The first one is probably easier.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ted Dennison <dennison_at_ssd.fsi.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 17:40:34 CEST

Grant Rettke wrote:
> If you want to convince people to use some technology because "big
> companies"
> use it, then an easy argument is to use Microsoft.
...Except that this typically means VSS, which Microsoft itself
reputedly does not use. See
http://www.subversionary.org/propaganda/why-not-vss#comment-53
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Grant Rettke <grettke_at_acm.org>
Date: 2006-09-12 18:23:55 CEST

Yes. Right now maybe it means Team System?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Markus KARG <markus.karg_at_quipsy.de>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:12:16 CEST

The question is what a big company is.
We are using SVN for one and a half year without any problems.
We are supplying more than ten thousand workplaces with our software,
while our development team and code base is rather small.

HTH
Markus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:16:03 CEST

>> The question is what a big company is.
Yes, it is not easy to define...

Indeed, I'm looking for any examples that can help me to prove that Subversion
is used and it is a stable and well-known product.

Thanks!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:37:41 CEST

I want to be clear ... It is not an argument that I wish to use...
But companies want to know that before to use it...

Unfortunately, companies make their choices like that in real life ... :o(
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: <Steve.Craft_at_sungard.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:23:44 CEST

On 9/12/06, Anthony Muller wrote:

> I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
> Control System.
>
> I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
> and why this choice.

I don't know if company size is the best indicator, the number or
complexity of the deliverable might be a better choice. My employer
(Sungard) is huge, but our actual development staff is relatively small
compared to the revenues, total employees, etc; we use Subversion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tjernstrom, Staffan <stjernstrom_at_mail.esignal.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:40:47 CEST

How about asking the folks at Collabnet how well their subversion support
offering is selling? We just went through a 3-month qualification / investigation
period before settling on subversion, and the only concern with using an open-source
tool from management was that we were able to get commercial support for it
(the high-up folk believe that support is better / quicker if we pay for it).
 
Rgds
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:54:57 CEST

Thanks for you message!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sean Kelley <sean.sweng_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 15:59:53 CEST

Hi,

On 9/12/06, Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller@hyperoffice.fr> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
> Control System.
>
> I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
> and why this choice.

At my company we have about 20 developers using Subversion but it
could easily grow to 80 as we start deploying it with other software
teams. The challenge I face with subversion is maintinaing it for
hundreds of developers.

User permissions / authorization for specific folders in Subversion is
cumbersome and tedious. Quite frankly, I wish there were better tools
for managing accounts and permissions. I am using a combination of an
LDAP group and an accessfile to control who has access and what level
of access on a per project basis. It is not easy.

Sean
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shane Turner <turner_at_infointeractive.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 16:05:30 CEST

Anthony Muller wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
> Control System.
>
> I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
> and why this choice.
>
> Best regards,
> Anthony
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@subversion.tigris.org
>
I know for a fact that AOL uses both Subversion and CVS.

Shane
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Blair Zajac <blair_at_orcaware.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 16:25:16 CEST

On Sep 12, 2006, at 5:52 AM, Anthony Muller wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm looking for reference of big companies using Subversion as Version
> Control System.
>
> I'd like to find something about their point of view using Subversion
> and why this choice.

The well known organizations that I have trained or consulted at that
are using Subversion include:

The World Bank
NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
DHL Global Mail - division of DHL
Sony Imageworks - special effects house

Those should be big enough names :)

Subversion has definitely reached the point where it's not a risky
decision to take for an individual in a corporation to recommend
moving to Subversion. Some of these

Regards,
Blair
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Anthony Muller <Anthony.Mueller_at_hyperoffice.fr>
Date: 2006-09-12 16:35:24 CEST

Nice :o)

Thanks! ;o)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike Brenner <mikeb_at_mitre.org>
Date: 2006-09-12 16:46:46 CEST

I use subversion to control millions of lines of
code, but I would not say I am the company because
some still use cvs and some use commercial products.

I think the question only makes sense
project by project, not company by company.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Eric Lemes <ericlemes_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 16:48:56 CEST

Well,

I work for a financial business company (in Brazil) and we're migrating our
codebase to SVN. Our release management policies will be above svn
repositories and automated build (this is my job now).

We have ~25 developers working today with SVN, over WINDOWS, and have ANY
problem until now. No crashes, sources lost, confusion, backup problems.
ANYTHING.

I think all of the "big companies" in Brazil uses SourceSafe. Think
seriously about it.

Maybe some commercial tools is better than SVN. But I preffer spend my
company's money with more hardware and qualified training than software
licensing.

Eric
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sheryl <gubydala_at_his.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 17:04:15 CEST

> If you want to convince people to use some technology because "big
> companie
> s"
> use it, then an easy argument is to use Microsoft.

To be sure there is something of the "herd mentality" in business. But
there's also the legitimate concern that if something isn't in wide use
and doesn't have paid support available then they'll be in trouble if the
guy who installs and supports it leaves. Or that if something is used
only by small groups that it won't scale.

It's useful to look upon questions like this from management as due
dilligence and an inquiry into "best practices". Lots of people have been
burned over the years by an employee who promoted a "shaggy dog" product
that turned out not to be what was promised. This has been true of
purchased products at least as much as open source/free software.

Sheryl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Christopher Taylor <chtaylo3_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 17:17:39 CEST

>
> User permissions / authorization for specific folders in Subversion is
> cumbersome and tedious. Quite frankly, I wish there were better tools
> for managing accounts and permissions. I am using a combination of an
> LDAP group and an accessfile to control who has access and what level
> of access on a per project basis. It is not easy.

 

I think this is a symptom of a problem for a number of open source
projects and something where, as much as I hate to say it, commercial
closed-source does a better job. I've noticed that quite a few (but
deff not even most) open source projects are reluctant to react to
user feedback. A lot of times there is an attitude of 'well that's
just not what i want my software to do' approach by the lead
developers. I think it then starts to become an ego issue. If enough
of the userbase wants a feature, it should probably be included ...
especially if it can be accomplished in such a manner that it doesn't
impact users who don't want the new feature.

-Christopher
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Grant Rettke <grettke_at_acm.org>
Date: 2006-09-12 18:28:54 CEST

Hi Sheryl, totally understood. One approach is to hire commodity
developers, stick with commodity technologies, and minimize risks.
Another approach is to hire excellent developers, rely on your
developers to make technical decisions, and in doing so minimize risk.
The first one is probably easier.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ryan Schmidt <subversion-2006c_at_ryandesign.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 18:34:49 CEST

On Sep 12, 2006, at 15:37, Anthony Muller wrote:

> I want to be clear ... It is not an argument that I wish to use...
> But companies want to know that before to use it...
>
> Unfortunately, companies make their choices like that in real
> life ... :o(

Have you looked at this page yet? It lists testimonials from people
explaining how Subversion has worked great for them and their
companies, and also lists many projects, some of them large, that use
Subversion.

http://subversion.tigris.org/testimonials.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Duncan Murdoch <murdoch_at_stats.uwo.ca>
Date: 2006-09-12 19:05:23 CEST

On 9/12/2006 11:17 AM, Christopher Taylor wrote:
>>
>> User permissions / authorization for specific folders in Subversion is
>> cumbersome and tedious. Quite frankly, I wish there were better tools
>> for managing accounts and permissions. I am using a combination of an
>> LDAP group and an accessfile to control who has access and what level
>> of access on a per project basis. It is not easy.
>
>
> I think this is a symptom of a problem for a number of open source
> projects and something where, as much as I hate to say it, commercial
> closed-source does a better job. I've noticed that quite a few (but
> deff not even most) open source projects are reluctant to react to
> user feedback. A lot of times there is an attitude of 'well that's
> just not what i want my software to do' approach by the lead
> developers.

I think that this is correct, but it's not a problem with the project or
the developers, it's a problem with the user. You're not paying the
developers anything, so why on earth would you expect that they should
work for you?

I think the vast majority of open source projects (certainly including
svn) do pay attention to user feedback, because often users make good
suggestions. But the only reason to work on something is because you
think it would be a good addition.

I think it then starts to become an ego issue. If enough
> of the userbase wants a feature, it should probably be included ...

The fact that a lot of people ask for something is not a good reason to
spend time on it if you consider it to be a bad idea, or a good idea but
not worth the effort. In the latter case, the user can make it happen
by contributing to the effort: hire someone to do the work.

> especially if it can be accomplished in such a manner that it doesn't
> impact users who don't want the new feature.

If you are asking a developer to do it, then it's certainly going to
impact on that developer's time, and the time of anyone maintaining the
code later. So the *only* features that meet your criteria are the ones
that the developers want. And that's more or less how it works.

Duncan Murdoch
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Reedick, Andrew <Andrew.Reedick_at_BellSouth.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 19:10:29 CEST

> ----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Taylor [mailto:chtaylo3@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:18 AM
> To: users@subversion.tigris.org
> Subject: Re: Big companies using Subversion ?
>
>
>
> I think this is a symptom of a problem for a number of open source
> projects and something where, as much as I hate to say it, commercial
> closed-source does a better job. I've noticed that quite a few (but
> deff not even most) open source projects are reluctant to react to
> user feedback. A lot of times there is an attitude of 'well that's
> just not what i want my software to do' approach by the lead
> developers. I think it then starts to become an ego issue. If enough
> of the userbase wants a feature, it should probably be included ...
> especially if it can be accomplished in such a manner that it doesn't
> impact users who don't want the new feature.
>

 

        Maybe, maybe not. Subversion was designed to be used in a
world-wide environment instead of on a closed corporate LAN. Which is
probably why:
        * it doesn't have heavy permissions, since open source is meant
to be open, plus the idea of trying to configure permissions for a world
wide audience is..... daunting, bordering on silly?
        * it's also why Subversion has server side hooks instead of
client side hooks. Client side hooks allow you greater control and
information management which is very nice (and almost critical) for a
coporate LAN. However, since your Subversion client was designed to be
able to check out/in code from publicly available Subversion servers
world-wide, you do not want some random server executing hooks on your
client or gathering information about your client.

        I don't think it's a case of developers ignoring the audience, I
think it's a case of corporate customers ignoring Subversion's goal of
providing open-source developers with a version control system that can
support developers world-wide. If coporate customers need/want a
Subversion that takes advantage of closed coporate LANs, then they will
probably need to pony up some developers and money to develop
SubversionForCoporateLANs(tm)(c)(patent pending).

 

Underpants Gnomes Disclaimer: I'm not bashing coporations. I'm just
saying that Open Source needs and coporate needs are not the same.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ted Dennison <dennison_at_ssd.fsi.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 20:56:33 CEST

Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 9/12/2006 11:17 AM, Christopher Taylor wrote:
>> closed-source does a better job. I've noticed that quite a few (but
>> deff not even most) open source projects are reluctant to react to
>> user feedback. A lot of times there is an attitude of 'well that's
>> just not what i want my software to do' approach by the lead
>> developers.
>
> I think that this is correct, but it's not a problem with the project
> or the developers, it's a problem with the user. You're not paying
> the developers anything, so why on earth would you expect that they
> should work for you?
>
> I think the vast majority of open source projects (certainly including
> svn) do pay attention to user feedback, because often users make good
> suggestions. But the only reason to work on something is because you
> think it would be a good addition.
I'd say its not a problem with the projects, developers, or users. The
issue is power. With a typical commercial support contract, the money
the client pays in every month gives them some power over the
developers. The client can coerce the developers by threatening to shut
off the flow of money, actively refusing to pay until something is done,
or even switching to a competing product altogether. Management
understands these kinds of financial levers, and has become adept at
using them.

If you tell management that you will be using a product where there are
no fees to be paid to anyone, you are basically telling them that they
will have *no* power, as they have come to understand it. This is going
to be scary to them.

What might help is explaining what the levers of power in an open source
product are (premiere among them being contributing work), and
discussing what resources your organization might be willing to commit
to the product to acquire that power, if it is desired.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shaun Johnson <shaun.johnson_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 22:28:58 CEST

Anthony,

We started using Subversion at our government agency recently. We have 5
different agencies in differnet locations sharing code through repositories
in a common SVN server and so far it's scaling well. We'd never be able to
use Source Safe across a WAN reliably. It just doesn't do well. It also
doesn't scale well if you have many items and many revisions in a single
database. CVS just has too many flaws for my taste.

Shaun
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shaun Johnson <shaun.johnson_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 22:39:08 CEST

Sean,

I'm in a similar situation and things are getting more tedious the more we
use SVN. We lock down everything in our repositories and give write access
only at the project level. Needless to say our authz file is very cumbersome
to maintain by hand. There have also been a couple problems due to typos. I
didn't find any decent tools other than scripts for editing authz files
either. So, I wrote one.

It's called Suafe. It's basically a GUI editor for authz files, written in
Java and Swing. You can download a copy from http://suafe.xiaoniu.org/. It's
still a work in progress, although I use it myself to maintain our authz
file. Hopefully, it'll come in handy for somebody other than myself.

Shaun
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Karl Fogel <kfogel_at_google.com>
Date: 2006-09-12 23:35:46 CEST

"Shaun Johnson" <shaun.johnson@gmail.com> writes:
> I'm in a similar situation and things are getting more tedious the
> more we use SVN. We lock down everything in our repositories and give
> write access only at the project level. Needless to say our authz file
> is very cumbersome to maintain by hand. There have also been a couple
> problems due to typos. I didn't find any decent tools other than
> scripts for editing authz files either. So, I wrote one.
>
> It's called Suafe. It's basically a GUI editor for authz files,
> written in Java and Swing. You can download a copy from
> http://suafe.xiaoniu.org/. It's still a work in progress, although I
> use it myself to maintain our authz file. Hopefully, it'll come in
> handy for somebody other than myself.

When you feel it's ready, can you post a patch to
dev@subversion.tigris.org adding Suafe to the Subversion
www/links.html page?

Thanks,
-Karl
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sean Kelley <sean.sweng_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2006-09-13 03:52:55 CEST

Hi,

On 9/12/06, Ted Dennison <dennison@ssd.fsi.com> wrote:
> Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> > On 9/12/2006 11:17 AM, Christopher Taylor wrote:
> >> closed-source does a better job. I've noticed that quite a few (but
> >> deff not even most) open source projects are reluctant to react to
> >> user feedback. A lot of times there is an attitude of 'well that's
> >> just not what i want my software to do' approach by the lead
> >> developers.
> >
> > I think that this is correct, but it's not a problem with the project
> > or the developers, it's a problem with the user. You're not paying
> > the developers anything, so why on earth would you expect that they
> > should work for you?
> >
> > I think the vast majority of open source projects (certainly including
> > svn) do pay attention to user feedback, because often users make good
> > suggestions. But the only reason to work on something is because you
> > think it would be a good addition.
> I'd say its not a problem with the projects, developers, or users. The
> issue is power. With a typical commercial support contract, the money
> the client pays in every month gives them some power over the
> developers. The client can coerce the developers by threatening to shut
> off the flow of money, actively refusing to pay until something is done,
> or even switching to a competing product altogether. Management
> understands these kinds of financial levers, and has become adept at
> using them.
>
> If you tell management that you will be using a product where there are
> no fees to be paid to anyone, you are basically telling them that they
> will have *no* power, as they have come to understand it. This is going
> to be scary to them.
>
> What might help is explaining what the levers of power in an open source
> product are (premiere among them being contributing work), and
> discussing what resources your organization might be willing to commit
> to the product to acquire that power, if it is desired.

I choose a vendor based on the features and the capabilities of a
product. Companies compete with both free and commercial products.
It has nothing to do with what kind of "pressure" one can apply.

I have a goal, it is to bring a product to market. The tools I use
may be free or commercial. I way the plus and minuses. I think you
put to much weight on what little influence one may have on the
features of a commercial product.

We are talking competition here. Commercial companies have bills to
pay, they know that if their competitors be they free or commercial
offer features they don't have, their revenue will decline.

Yes, there is power. The power is in consumer choice, the freedom to
pick the best tool for the job.

Sean
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ping235 <ping235_at_126.com>
Date: 2006-09-13 04:14:53 CEST

I learned that the google's code site is employing SVN to host their
open source projects see code.google.com for more details.
----------------------------------------------------------------------