The point of the article isn't about how independent Linux is from corporate control. The point is that it is possible for companies who normally make everything proprietary as a matter of coures to use the GPL to write software that is available for free or a nominal price, with source code that is available and editable.
Even a company writing code exclusively for the windows with no concern for the Linux world whatsoever could still release its code under the GPL.
Yes, CVS will do this. It only does this when you are using reserved checkouts; but it is a configurable option like any other that you set up when you are outlining your development processes.
You don't get hung up on the the word 'open source' and instead use 'distributed development', and avoid getting hung up on your love of VB, you'll find that CVS solves most of the problems that other version control systems can't touch. CVS is not idiot-proof, and is prone to pilot error. It needs to have some solid project management to avoid serious problems. But you know what, if you don't have decent development management, you have bigger problems that your source control solution. Here is why CVS is great: it's small, lightweight, works extremely esily with developers writing on multiple platforms, is amazingly easy to maintain when compared to the extremely cumbersome and slow solutions of other systems. Solutions like ClearCase and VSS require system configurations that take over major portions of both the server and clietn software, and make distributed computing nearly impossible. Have you ever tried setting up ClearCase to work for multiple offices in different states, and engineers who telecommute? It is nearly impossible. With CVS, you set up a repository, set up a pserver port, and blammo, any one that can get behind your firewall can access the source control sytem, from anywhere, with a very limited toolset. And build times are also trastically reduced. Try this sometime: do an export of your files in source control to a flat file system. I did. 20 minutes for about 10,000 odd files (java,xml templates, images and shell scripts) for CVS. About 4 hours for ClearCase. CVS is not the end-all be-all that many source control systems claim to be, but it also doesn't ahve a lot of the baggage that limit development flexibility those other systems have.
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Even a company writing code exclusively for the windows with no concern for the Linux world whatsoever could still release its code under the GPL.
Yes, CVS will do this. It only does this when you are using reserved checkouts; but it is a configurable option like any other that you set up when you are outlining your development processes.
You don't get hung up on the the word 'open source' and instead use 'distributed development', and avoid getting hung up on your love of VB, you'll find that CVS solves most of the problems that other version control systems can't touch. CVS is not idiot-proof, and is prone to pilot error. It needs to have some solid project management to avoid serious problems. But you know what, if you don't have decent development management, you have bigger problems that your source control solution. Here is why CVS is great: it's small, lightweight, works extremely esily with developers writing on multiple platforms, is amazingly easy to maintain when compared to the extremely cumbersome and slow solutions of other systems. Solutions like ClearCase and VSS require system configurations that take over major portions of both the server and clietn software, and make distributed computing nearly impossible. Have you ever tried setting up ClearCase to work for multiple offices in different states, and engineers who telecommute? It is nearly impossible. With CVS, you set up a repository, set up a pserver port, and blammo, any one that can get behind your firewall can access the source control sytem, from anywhere, with a very limited toolset. And build times are also trastically reduced. Try this sometime: do an export of your files in source control to a flat file system. I did. 20 minutes for about 10,000 odd files (java,xml templates, images and shell scripts) for CVS. About 4 hours for ClearCase. CVS is not the end-all be-all that many source control systems claim to be, but it also doesn't ahve a lot of the baggage that limit development flexibility those other systems have.