- VA's core enterprise systems are open-source and large (Some are in the millions lines of lines of code and tens of thousands of files). These enterprise systems are not currently under any industry-standard source code control.
- Software development and updates to VA's enterprise systems therefore rely on on manual processes or outdated tools, making evolution exceedingly slow and error prone.
- The VA does not currently approve or use any of the current industry-standard source control systems to support these enterprise sytsems.
- VA needs a single, authoritative, industry-standard, open-source source code control system, particularly for VA's large enterprise systems.
- All VA software tools are reviewed and listed in the VA Technical Reference Model (TRM), VA's software and tools catalog.
- The TRM Categorization Framework does not have any category specific for source code version control.
- Source code version control is subsumed under the broader Software Change and Configuration Management Tools category. This includes Configuration Management, Project Management, File Repositories, and proprietary development environments.
- The subset of TRM Software Change and Configuration Management tools specific to source code version control are the following:
| TRM Name | OSS | Purpose | Decision | TRM Link | Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Git | YES | DVCS | Unapproved | 6396 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology (?RTC) |
| GitHub Desktop | YES | DVCS | Unapproved | 9452 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology. (?RTC) |
| Github Enterprise | YES | DVCS | Unapproved | 9533 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology.(?RTC) |
| GitLab | YES | DVCS | Unapproved | 9580 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology.(?RTC) |
| GitLab Enterprise | YES | DVCS | Unapproved | 9463 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology.(?RTC) |
| Subversion | YES | SVCS | Prohibited | 6573 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology.(?RTC) |
| CVS | YES | SVCS | Prohibited | 194 | Does not support atomic commits of changes to versioned objects. |
| Perforce | NO | RCS | Prohibited | 268 | An enterprise license has already been acquired for a comparable technology.(?RTC) |
| Rational Team Concert (RTC) | NO | Dev | Approved with Constraints | 5085 | IBM Jazz development/delivery environment. Note: While IBM still supports RTC for its external customers, it does not use RTC internally for code management. IBM has migrated all their source code to Github Enterprise. IBM's new cloud-based software platform called IBM Bluemix is also all Github-based. |
- Why Google Stores Billions of Lines of Code in a Single Repository: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google-stores-billions-of-lines-of-code-in-a-single-repository/fulltext
- IBM is world's largest user of Github: https://www.blueboxcloud.com/insight/blog-article/github-ibm-com-running-on-blue-box
- VA ProPath and VIP: Recommend use of legacy tools instead of Github?: https://www.osehra.org/sites/default/files/VIP_Guide_1_0_v14.pdf
| Abbreviation | Description |
|---|---|
| OSS | Open-source software |
| Dev | software development platform (proprietary) |
| RCS | revision control system |
| DVCS | distributed version control and source code management system |
| SVCS | software version control system |
| Git | open source distributed version control and source code management system |
- VA needs a single, authoritative, industry-standard, open-source software source-control system for all software.
- The TRM does not currently list any of the current industry-standard source control systems as approved (all the git-based).
- See Issue #1: Update TRM to industry best-practices