CVS and divergent development

[Ed McGuire]

Is there a capability within CVS to support parallel development
of more than one version of the same software derived from a common
ancestor?

Our development plan was initially to freeze code periodically,
tag it with a release name and deliver it, then begin development
of the next planned release.

We have found in practice that it will be necessary to do `bug fix'
releases derived from the originally released version concurrently
with the development of the next planned release.  This leads to
the problem of how to to maintain the `bug fix' release under CVS.

The method we're using right now is pretty crude, requiring careful
bookkeeping:  keeping track of which files were fixed and what their
RCS revision numbers are.

The developer of a `bug fix' release copies out the original release
by tag.  When ready, s/he commits each modified file to a branch
off the original file.  Thus the `bug fix' release consists partly
of original trunk nodes and partly of branch tips.

To tag the `bug fix' release, a new tag synonymous for the original
release is first created.  Then `rcs -N' is used to relink the tag
of each modified source with the branch tip.

Am I missing the obvious?
-- 
peace.  -- Ed
"Over here, Bones!  This man's dying!"
"Damn it, Jim!  I'm a doctor, not a . . .  What did you say?"