This documentation was written to describe Subversion 1.0. If you are running a newer version of Subversion, we strongly suggest that you visit http://www.svnbook.com/ and consult the version of this book appropriate for your version of Subversion.
This book would not be possible (nor very useful) if Subversion did not exist. For that, the authors would like to thank Brian Behlendorf and CollabNet for the vision to fund such a risky and ambitious new Open Source project; Jim Blandy for the original Subversion name and design—we love you, Jim; Karl Fogel for being such a good friend and a great community leader, in that order.[1]
Thanks to O'Reilly and our editors, Linda Mui and Tatiana Diaz for their patience and support.
Finally, we thank the countless people who contributed to this book with informal reviews, suggestions, and fixes: While this is undoubtedly not a complete list, this book would be incomplete and incorrect without the help of: Jani Averbach, Ryan Barrett, Francois Beausoleil, Jennifer Bevan, Matt Blais, Zack Brown, Martin Buchholz, Brane Cibej, John R. Daily, Peter Davis, Olivier Davy, Robert P. J. Day, Mo DeJong, Brian Denny, Joe Drew, Nick Duffek, Ben Elliston, Justin Erenkrantz, Shlomi Fish, Julian Foad, Chris Foote, Martin Furter, Dave Gilbert, Eric Gillespie, Matthew Gregan, Art Haas, Greg Hudson, Alexis Huxley, Jens B. Jorgensen, Tez Kamihira, David Kimdon, Mark Benedetto King, Andreas J. Koenig, Nuutti Kotivuori, Matt Kraai, Scott Lamb, Vincent Lefevre, Morten Ludvigsen, Paul Lussier, Bruce A. Mah, Philip Martin, Feliciano Matias, Patrick Mayweg, Gareth McCaughan, Jon Middleton, Tim Moloney, Mats Nilsson, Joe Orton, Amy Lyn Pilato, Kevin Pilch-Bisson, Dmitriy Popkov, Michael Price, Mark Proctor, Steffen Prohaska, Daniel Rall, Tobias Ringstrom, Garrett Rooney, Joel Rosdahl, Christian Sauer, Larry Shatzer, Russell Steicke, Sander Striker, Erik Sjoelund, Johan Sundstroem, John Szakmeister, Mason Thomas, Eric Wadsworth, Colin Watson, Alex Waugh, Chad Whitacre, Josef Wolf, Blair Zajac, and the entire Subversion community.
Thanks to my wife Frances, who, for many months, got to hear, “But honey, I'm still working on the book”, rather than the usual, “But honey, I'm still doing email.” I don't know where she gets all that patience! She's my perfect counterbalance.
Thanks to my extended family for their sincere encouragement, despite having no actual interest in the subject. (You know, the ones who say, “Ooh, you're writing a book?”, and then when you tell them it's a computer book, sort of glaze over.)
Thanks to all my close friends, who make me a rich, rich man. Don't look at me that way—you know who you are.
Huge thanks to my wife Marie for being incredibly understanding, supportive, and most of all, patient. Thank you to my brother Eric who first introduced me to UNIX programming way back when. Thanks to my Mom and Grandmother for all their support, not to mention enduring a Christmas holiday where I came home and promptly buried my head in my laptop to work on the book.
To Mike and Ben: It was a pleasure working with you on the book. Heck, it's a pleasure working with you at work!
To everyone in the Subversion community and the Apache Software Foundation, thanks for having me. Not a day goes by where I don't learn something from at least one of you.
Lastly, thanks to my Grandfather who always told me that “freedom equals responsibility.” I couldn't agree more.
Special thanks to my wife, Amy, for her love and patient support, for putting up with late nights, and for even reviewing entire sections of this book—you always go the extra mile, and do so with incredible grace. Gavin, when you're old enough to read, I hope you're as proud of your Daddy as he is of you. Mom and Dad (and the rest of the family), thanks for your constant support and enthusiasm.
Hats off to Shep Kendall, through whom the world of computers was first opened to me; Ben Collins-Sussman, my tour-guide through the open-source world; Karl Fogel—you are my .emacs; Greg Stein, for oozing practical programming know-how; Brian Fitzpatrick—for sharing this writing experience with me. To the many folks from whom I am constantly picking up new knowledge—keep dropping it!
Finally, to the One who perfectly demonstrates creative excellence—thank you.