45 lines
2.3 KiB
Text
45 lines
2.3 KiB
Text
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There are plenty of open-source version control systems available
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on the internet these days. What makes Fossil worthy of attention?
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1. Bug Tracking And Wiki - In addition to doing distributed
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version control like Git and Mercurial, Fossil also supports
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distributed bug tracking and distributed wiki all in a single
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integrated package.
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2. Web Interface - Fossil has a built-in and easy-to-use web
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interface that simplifies project tracking and promotes situational
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awareness. Simply type "fossil ui" from within any check-out
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and Fossil automatically opens your web browser in a page that
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gives detailed history and status information on that project.
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3. Autosync - Fossil supports "autosync" mode which helps to
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keep projects moving forward by reducing the amount of needless
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forking and merging often associated distributed projects.
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4. Self-Contained - Fossil is a single stand-alone executable
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that contains everything needed to do configuration management.
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Installation is trivial: simply download a precompiled binary
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for Linux, Mac, or Windows and put it on your $PATH. Easy-to-compile
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source code is available for users on other platforms. Fossil
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sources are also mostly self-contained, requiring only the "zlib"
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library and the standard C library to build.
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5. Simple Networking - Fossil uses plain old HTTP (with proxy
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support) for all network communications, meaning that it works
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fine from behind restrictive firewalls. The protocol is bandwidth
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efficient to the point that Fossil can be used comfortably over
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a dial-up internet connection.
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6. CGI Enabled - No server is required to use fossil. But a
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server does make collaboration easier. Fossil supports three
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different yet simple server configurations. The most popular is
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a 2-line CGI script. This is the approach used by the self-hosting
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fossil repositories.
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7. Robust & Reliable - Fossil stores content in an SQLite database
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so that transactions are atomic even if interrupted by a power
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loss or system crash. Furthermore, automatic self-checks verify
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that all aspects of the repository are consistent prior to each
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commit. In over two years of operation, no work has ever been
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lost after having been committed to a Fossil repository.
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