Paul E. Black, Gdist: A Distributed Configuration Control System, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Software Version and Configuration Control, Grassau, FRG (January 1988), German Chapter of the ACM, 1988, pages 276-284.

Abstract:

    While there are many tools for version and configuration control, they lack features necessary in distributed development environments. This paper describes Gdist: a system which provides simple access to the configuration control database from anywhere in a network, automatic and reliable copy updates, coordinated compilation on diverse hosts, and self-checking in addition to the usual version control. Gdist increases the productivity of developers working on different machines while greatly reducing the manual effort typically required. It is an integration of several existing tools sets, rather than an isolated system, and is quite cost-effective and can easily be added to existing schemes.

    We describe the unique problems of operating a distributed version and configuration control system and how Gdist addresses them. A typical scenario is presented to describe Gdist's operation and our experience using it. Finally some of the questions which are still open and desired improvements are listed.

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