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USENIX Technical Program - Abstract - USENIX 99
Opening the Source Repository with Anonymous CVS
Charles D. Cranor, AT&T Labs--Research; Theo de Raadt, The OpenBSD Project
Abstract
Anonymous CVS is an advanced source file distribution
mechanism we created to allow open source software
projects to distribute source code and information
about code to Internet users. Built on top of the Concurrent
Versions System (CVS) revision control system,
Anonymous CVS safely allows anonymous read-only
access to a CVS source repository. Prior to the introduction
of Anonymous CVS, access to a CVS repository
had to be restricted to a select group of privileged software
developers. The advantage of open source software
is that it promotes reliability and quality by allowing
independent peer review and rapid evolution of source
code. By introducing Anonymous CVS, we have extended
the concept of open source software projects to
open source repository projects. Having an open source
repository allows users to take a more active role in the
debugging and development of open source projects. In
this paper we will examine and compare the mechanisms
used by open source projects to distribute source
code. We will present the design and implementation
of the first Anonymous CVS server (used to distribute
the OpenBSD operating system). We will explain some
of our concerns (e.g., security) and some of the problems
we faced when trying to adapt CVS for anonymous
use. We also will present other more recent source file
distribution mechanisms that make use of an open CVS
repository. Anonymous CVS is currently bring used
by a number of projects including OpenBSD, FreeBSD,
Mozilla, Ecgs, Gnome, Python, and GNUstep.
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