The Subversion open source community has announced the general availability of version 1.5 of the Subversion software configuration management (SCM) tool. Among other key features, Subversion 1.5 includes:
- Merge tracking for more automated and efficient branch management.
- Sparse checkouts to enable users to check out only a portion of a source tree to reduce the total footprint on their individual workstations.
- Repository sharding and partitioning, to more efficiently distribute repository storage across filesystem resources and to improve server performance.
- A proxying system for spreading read-load across multiple repository servers for improved performance.
Merge tracking and its related functions mark a significant change in the way developers use Subversion for distributed development. Interactive conflict resolution lets users proactively resolve issues during the merge process. Merge history and annotated logs provide additional information not available in previous Subversion releases, allowing users to query for available changes on different lines of development, and making it easier to back out changes. Subversion 1.5 offers both command-line and API access to these operations.
"Measuring by new features alone, Subversion 1.5 is our biggest release since version 1.0 became available in February 2004," said Karl Fogel, president of the non-profit Subversion Corporation. "In Subversion 1.5, we made a conscious effort to integrate ideas from both individual and corporate users. That process worked quite well, and we will probably continue to use it for future development."