Why was Subversion developed?
Subversion came about from an attempt to address a couple of particular issues. First, there were significant issues in the most prominent open source version control tool, Concurrent Versions System (CVS), that couldn’t really be addressed properly given its long-established architecture. Secondly, there was a need to have a version control tool that was designed from the start to be used across the Internet. Both of those issues drove the original focus – to be a compelling replacement for CVS. Today, that goal has clearly been achieved and the focus has turned to addressing additional functionality that is expected from a version control or source code management tool.
