What do people think of the fossil DVCS?

dvcs fossil
javelinBCD picture javelinBCD · Oct 1, 2008 · Viewed 22.7k times · Source

fossil http://www.fossil-scm.org
I found this recently and have started using it for my home projects. I want to hear what other people think of this VCS.

What is missing in my mind, is IDE support. Hopefully it will come, but I use the command line just fine.

My favorite things about fossil: single executable with built in web server wiki and bug tracking. The repository is just one SQLite (http://www.sqlite.org) database file, easy to do backups on. I also like that I can run fossil from and keep the repository on my thumb drive. This means my software development has become completely portable.

Tell me what you think....

Answer

Richard Hipp picture Richard Hipp · Oct 3, 2008

Mr. Millikin, if you will take a few moments to review some of the documentation on fossil, I think your objections are addressed there. Storing a repository in an sQLite database is arguably safer than any other approach. See link text for some of the advantages of using a transactional database to store a repository. As for bloat: The entire thing is in a single self-contained executable which seems to disprove that concern.

Full disclosure: I am the author of fossil.

Note that I wrote fossil because no other DVCS met my needs. On the other hand, my needs are not your needs and so only you can judge whether or not fossil is right for you. But I do encourage you to at least have a look at the documentation and try to understand the problem that fossil is trying to solve before you dismiss it.

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