Reasons to use Subversion over MS Source Safe

Question

Hi

I am in the following predicament, i currently use Subversion for my source control and love it. The problem is that i have to (in the near future) hand over my project to another group of dev's to maintain while still working on it my self . The problem is that they have never heard of or used Subversion and only use MS Source Safe. Even though i have asked them to investigate it they seem to be one minded in that only MS Source Safe should be used.

I need to convince the Team Leaders of the benefits of subversion over Source Safe but since i have not used it in many years i am not sure of what are the exact pitfalls etc of using Source Safe.

The most Important and only features that i know of are.

1. No File Locking in Subversion
2. I am able to work offline (from the company network) , since i do this quite often its a important feature for me.

Can you please list any problems that you might have had or any features that you think i might loose by moving to source safe.

Please note Team Foundation server is not a option and that a the project is a .Net Project.

Thanks

Answer 1

I use VSS at work and Subversion at home and like them both. File locking in VSS can be awesome at times but really suck other times. One of the things I like about Subversion is the ease of branching and whatnot. VSS also seems to have many more issues integrating in to Visual Studio as well.

Answer 2

The classic arguments against VSS are found in Visual SourceSafe: Microsoft's Source Destruction System

I like subversion for the following reasons

• Free
• Open Source
• Red Book Documentation Online
• Easy to Branch/Merge
• Free Client Tools / Gui's / IDE AddIns
• Multiple Access Methods (svnserve, http, etc)

among others...

I've used VSS, ClearCase, CVS and Subversion and I love Subversion

Answer 3

See this, this and this. Long story short: using VSS you spend more time fighting with VSS itself than actually doing useful work.