I'm not sure whether what I'm looking for exists, so please point me in the right direction if it does.

I'm working with a few developers on a website project (they're all in the same physical building, with access to the same file paths). What I'm after is a file versioning /CVS type functionality without the hassle. Ideally a service which sits on the server, and keeps a backup copy of each and every file that's changed (when and by whom), so we've got an audit trail, and can go back and access code in its previous state.

I'm not worried about checkin-check out as normally work is in very discrete sections.
-- neilp, Jun 16 2005

DEC's OSes like RSX and VMS had this http://en.wikipedia...nization_and_naming
Read about how it worked here [krelnik, Jun 17 2005]

Consumer advice. This isn't what the HalfBakery is for.

Edit- Apologies!

: (
-- Night, Jun 16 2005


Consumer advice requests are usually tolerated, though.

[neilp], you might look into Starbase StarTeam for source, version control, bug reporting and config. mgmt. (or whatever subset you need). Supports rollback, diff and has a complete audit trail. Designed for collaborative work.
-- bristolz, Jun 16 2005


hey [bris] thanks for that. That's definitely the sort of thing, (we're using Visual Source Safe at the moment), it's just the process is v. clunky and I was hoping for something which is transparent to the users (a bit more backup-y).
-- neilp, Jun 16 2005


Title-1/2
Subtitle-1/2=bun.
-- blissmiss, Jun 16 2005


But -1/2 + -1/2 = -1
-- bristolz, Jun 16 2005


weren't there some file systems that have versioning built in?
-- theircompetitor, Jun 16 2005


Remember Stacker, the disk compression utility? They had to find another business to be in when Microsoft (quite rightly) incorporated this functionality directly into the file system.

One of the prototypes they built as a possible future product was almost EXACTLY what you describe. It was a file system driver for Windows 95 that watched when you saved files, and transparently kept version histories on them without you doing anything. (And of course it used the patented Stac compression algorithm to minimize the extra space it took to store all this extra data).

Apparently either (a) they determined there was no market for this or (b) they couldn't work the kinks out of their implementation, because despite having shown it at a few trade shows, they never brought it to market.

As theircompetitor mentions, there were many old-school "mainframe" operating systems like DEC's VMS had this feature built in. When you accessed a file, you could optionally include a version number with the file name. See link.
-- krelnik, Jun 17 2005


Versions were automatic. You had to purge or set version limits (which automatically purged) to avoid them. Auditing file system access was possible, but not normally done as it created massive audit files. I miss VMS. Not that it isn’t still around, I just don’t work with it anymore.
-- Shz, Jun 17 2005



random, halfbakery