Here are Subversion testimonials, and a list of prominent projects using Subversion. If you're trying to persuade your organization to try Subversion, this page might help you.
ASF: the Apache Software Foundation.
Project site: http://www.apache.orgSamba: SMB services for *nix systems.
Project site: http://www.samba.orgZope: web application server/framework.
Project site: http://www.zope.orgXiph: open-source multimedia protocols.
Project site: http://www.xiph.orgDebian: a popular Linux distribution.
Project site: http://www.debian.orgConectiva: a South American Linux distribution.
Project site: http://www.conectiva.com.brTrac: a project management system.
Project site: http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/GNU Enterprise: enterprise application development.
Project site: http://www.gnuenterprise.orgberlios.de: free hosting for open-source projects.
Project site: http://www.berlios.dewush.net: commercial Subversion hosting.
Project site: http://www.wush.netI introduced SVN to Absolute Systems Inc. (www.absolutesys.com) where I work about a year ago, and for about 8 months we ran internal SVN pilots, played around to gain experience and trust, etc.
In the last 4 months we have migrated all of our internal product source repositories from Visual Source-Safe to SVN using an internally-written VSS-to-SVN migration tool.
Our largest SVN repository is now 3.7GB and currently has 68806 revisions. We are running SVN 1.0.1 + Apache 2.0.48 on Linux. ...
SVN is a superb piece of work, and it is a *huge* step forward from VSS. To put things in perspective... previously we had 26 VSS databases for one product, primarily because of problems with VSS when the repositories grow large. As you can imagine, trying to manage product releases across so many repositories was really painful.
Now, with SVN, *all* of the artifacts for that same product are in a single repository, meaning that with a few cheap copy operations all of the sources that make up a given release can be grouped together. ...
I'm sure you are aware about the fantastic product you people have built, but I'd like to tell you a little story which should give new users some comfort about it.
Here in Conectiva we used to maintain our packages in a file based system, storing the latest SRPM packages, and also some old versions in case something bad happened. For a long time we wanted to build some system which would make our life easier in the daily work, and at the same time would give us some flexibility accessing historic information.
Shortening the history a lot, 1 year and 6 months ago, the first revision was committed into our repository:
% svn log https://svn.distro.conectiva/repos/cnc -r 1
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r1 | niemeyer | 2002-08-27 17:12:04 -0300 (Tue, 27 Aug 2002) | 1 line
Created basic structure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since then, 5 complete Conectiva Linux distributions were committed into the repository, and every single update in the distribution is done using Subversion. We've already surpassed 50000 revisions, in a 30GB repository. Even though we have had space, memory, and other kinds of problems around the repository, I'm proud to say we have never lost a single bit of information since then.
Based on this, the least I could do is sending a big THANK YOU for everyone involved in the project.
We are using Subversion since version 0.17 and it never let us down. On contrary it provided a much better experience than any versioning system we have used before, including CVS and perforce. With Apple adding support for .svn files within NIBs with Xcode 1.2 we are certain that subversion is the ideal versioning platform for modern software development on Mac OS X.
... We're moving from CVSNT to Subversion this week. I beat the crap out of it, and it's just amazing source control. Every CVS weakness that I ever complained about is gone, and the "changeset" concept has resulted in significantly easier to understand commits, and much better performance updates. ...
(from Brad Wilson)Happy subversion user here. ... I *love* that moves and renames are tracked correctly and update working copies sensibly. Atomic commits are one of those features where even if you don't really get it when you read it on the feature list, once you're used to having it you can't imagine life without it. ... (from Ian Olsen)
I've probably used the vast majority of mainstream version control systems including CVS, SCCS, RCS, Perforce, PVCS, Rational ClearCase, Microsoft Visual SourceSafe, and others. While none of these are perfect, and Subversion, while feature-rich, isn't fully perfect, my brief use of Subversion has elevated it to the top of my list and has lead me to seriously consider dropping CVS in favor of Subversion for my personal projects. Of all of the modern batch of version control systems, I think that Perforce is great, but I think that Subversion is better, especially when used with TortoiseSVN. Subversion edges out Perforce because of the price (free) and it beats the pants off of ClearCase, basically because it works. I've had good and rocky times with open source software, but the group of people behind Subversion and TortoiseSVN have done an excellent job building a quality product and should be very proud of themselves. With version 1.0, I see Subversion becoming a major player and I think that within the next year we'll start to see a mass migration from CVS to Subversion. I also see (or at least hope) that the version control marketplace takes notice because Subversion will give them a run for their money. It's going to be harder to make the sale and justify spending thousands of dollars for a difficult-to-use version control system when there's a free and open source version control system that is plainly better than the commercial competition.
... I've been using Subversion for personal and team projects for a few years now. I never regretted it, except for the deep frustration I feel everytime I have to go back to CVS.
I am glad to have introduced many people to this software, through projects, talks or a course on versionning systems. I haven't heard anybody disappointed by it, and this doesn't surprise me. ...