A distributed version control system for wide area networks

This paper describes a distributed revision control system (DRCS) that is suitable for use in wide area networks. A selective amount of replication is used to improve performance. The system was developed as an extension to an existing revision control system (RCS). DRCS runs on various versions of the UNIX* system. It uses the UUCP communication protocol, but it can be easily adapted to use another communications protocol. The system has been used as a tool to control the source files for a document that is being jointly authored by two persons who are geographically separated by over 200 km. The performance of the system has been closely monitored, and the results of this monitoring will be used to provide ideas for improvements which will be incorporated into version 2 of the system