PVCS

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PVCS, or Polytron Version Control System, is a software package by Serena Software Inc. for revision control of files, in particular source code files.

PVCS follows the "locking" approach to concurrency control; it has no merge operator built-in (but does, nonetheless, have a separate merge command). However PVCS can also be configured to support several users simultaneously attempting to edit the file; in this case the second commiter (chronologically speaking) will have a branch created for him/her so that both modifications, instead of conflicting, will appear as parallel histories for the same file. This is unlike CVS and Subversion where the second commiter needs to first merge the changes via the update command and then resolve conflicts (when they exist) before actually committing.

Originally published by Polytron in 1985, through a history of acquisitions and mergers, the product was at times owned by Sage Software, Intersolv, and Merant Software. The latter was acquired by Serena Software in 2004, which was itself acquired by Silver Lake Partners in 2006^[1].

In 2008, Serena Software announced that the PVCS product will no longer be enhanced. Customers are encouraged to move to the Serena Software Dimensions Express software product. Serena continues to provide support, bug fixes, and currency with Operating Systems and IDEs and have made no announcement on when this will end. ^[2].