Requirements for Version Control Tools - Lars Bendix

In this Open Space we want to explore more precisely what requirements we - as configuration managers - have to the perfect version control tool. The initial idea for the Open Space was triggered by a blog post on version control from Poul-Henning Kamp (in Danish - Google Translate might be your friend).

The purpose of the Open Space is not to discuss git - or any other specific tool - but to get deeper into what absolute requirements must be satisfied by a version control tool for us (CM) to rely on it:

In reality what we (CM) are looking for is a way to implement a CMDB and we need to explore if version control tools satisfy the requirements we have for such a CMDB.

Since Kamp calls git a collaboration tool (groupware) - and a very good one - we will also address what requirements people (developers?) could have to a collaboration/groupware tool - and in which way they differ from or might be in contrast with those for a CMDB.

Most probably version control tools will find themselves somewhere between a CMDB and groupware. Sometimes closer to one - other times closer to the other - and maybe never really able to bridge the span?