Existing software configuration management systems embody a wide variety of policies for how artifacts can evolve. New policies continue to be introduced. Without a clean separation of configuration management policies from configuration management mechanisms, it is difficult to understand the policies as well as difficult to reason about how they relate. We introduce a formal foundation for specifying configuration management policies by viewing the policies in terms of graph transformation systems. Not only are we able to precisely capture the semantics of individual policies, we can, for the first time, describe formal properties of the relationship between policies.

A configuration management concept is presented for software projects using Lyee methodology. To show this concept an introduction in configuration management is given. Then, the structure of Lyee programs is redefined by sets and their dependencies.

Managing software products during software development is essential. A model is needed to model products and facilitates product management. Important product management functions include: 1) version control, 2) configuration management, 3) product consistency management, 4) reference completeness management, and 5) product reuse support. This paper proposes a product model to facilitate the functions above. Since product relationships play important roles in product management, the proposed model especially emphasizes them.

In this paper we describe a configuration management tool suitable for the untethered scenarios typical in a mobile environment. The scenario envisions a number of homogeneous peers that are able to provide the same services, disconnect frequently from the net, and perform part of their work while disconnected. In these contexts the absence of a host is not the exceptional case, but rather the normal behavior. Thus, a traditional architecture based on a central repository exposes the system to failures when the server is unavailable. Instead, we build our system on a peer-to-peer middleware able to provide the abstraction of global virtual data structure, i.e., a data structure composed by all the data actually connected in a given instant. Thanks to this, we can exploit the service provided by the network even if relevant hosts are disconnected.

The data models of a series of 11 configuration management systems---of varying type and complexity---are represented using containment data models. Containment data models are a specialized form of entityrelationship model in which entities may be containers or atoms, and the only permitted form of relationship is inclusion or referential containment. By using entities to represent the native abstractions of each system, and containment relationships to model inclusion and identifier references, systems can be modeled uniformly, permitting consistent cross-comparison of systems.

systems has bequeathed a rich legacy of data models, system architectures, and implementation approaches. Yet, except for one or two papers that only look at portions of the entire design space, this information has not been comprehensively surveyed and communicated. Tradeoffs between design alternatives have not been systematically examined. An opportunity exists to analyze existing knowledge about CM systems, distill out the key lessons, and then leverage it for advanced research on CM. Furthermore, prior work by the principal investigator has identified containment relationships as being the foundation of data models for versioning systems. This insight opens the possibility of statically specifying the data models and semantics of CM repositories, and automatically generating CM systems from these specifications. Approach. We propose to dramatically increase the maturity of the CM discipline by developing a domain model of the CM domain, and evaluating this domain model by creating technology to automatically generate CM repositories from a repository specification language. The CM domain model will be developed by first gathering information about all known research and commercial CM systems, then analyzing it to develop: Domain requirements: a collection of goals concerning the functionality and behavior of applications in a domain, Domain architecture: a reference software architecture for a family of systems in the domain,

Abstract. This paper presents a system called CodeBreaker for supporting small and medium size software development based on an extreme programming principle. The system follows a decentralized model of development, which means, it does not requires a central repository. A set of rules for code ownership maintains the synchronization of the work among all members of the deveoping team which can wokl on- or offline. It allows fine-grained locking of parts of the code. 1

The widespread use of the Internet as a communication medium has opened the possibility to carry out software projects with a team of geographically distributed software engineers cooperating and communicating over the Internet. In the future, this development approach will likely become increasingly common. We argue that this necessitates the use of Internet-based Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) and Configuration Management (CM) environments. In this paper a model of Internet-based CASE/CM services is presented, requirements of such systems and the underlying technology are investigated, and a prototype of such a system is introduced. 1 Introduction The emerging widespread use of the Internet is transforming the way in which software development is carried out. Whereas in traditional software engineering a software project is carried out by a team of geographically co-located developers, Internet-based software engineering, variously referred to as distributed software eng...

Software configuration management (SCM) has proved to be an invaluable part of developing and maintaining high quality software. The benefits are not for free however: SCM tool operations often divert your attention from your development task, sometimes you have to endure a long waiting time while the tool does its job, change descriptions must be memorised until your next check-in, etc. This kind of overhead and disruption does not fit well with fast-paced development processes like rapid prototyping, explorative programming, and eXtreme Programming that favour creativity, speed, and communication more than managerial rigour. In the cost/benefit equation the balance may tip in favour of not using any SCM tool or only using a fraction of its potential. We think SCM has something to offer such projects, and present some proposals that may allow SCM tools to better suit the characteristics of fast-paced projects. 1

This paper deals with computer supported cooperative work in the context of untethered scenarios typical of mobile environments.