Artifact 87fae1c8756e7a5ea55114fd81ffd76a5be26d5e:

• File www/index.wiki — part of check-in [be7fdc7ab0] at 2015-02-18 19:10:24 on branch trunk — Make the front page less prolix. Fix typos in the "fossil ui" help screen. (user: drh size: 7193)

Fossil

What Is Fossil?

• Download
• Quick Start
• Install
• License
• FAQ
• Change Log
• Hacker How-To
• Tip & Hints
• Documentation Index
• Jim Schimpf's book
• Mailing list
  • sign-up
  • archives

Fossil is a simple, high-reliability, distributed software configuration management with these advanced features:

1. Integrated Bug Tracking, Wiki, & Technotes - In addition to doing distributed version control like Git and Mercurial, Fossil also supports bug tracking, wiki, and technotes.

2. Built-in Web Interface - Fossil has a built-in and intuitive web interface that promotes project situational awareness. Type "fossil ui" and Fossil automatically opens a web browser to a page that shows detailed graphical history and status information on that project.

This entire website¹ is just a running instance of Fossil. The pages you see here are all wiki or embedded documentation. When you clone Fossil from one of its self-hosting repositories, you get more than just source code - you get this entire website. ([1] except the download page)

3. Self-Contained - Fossil is a single self-contained stand-alone executable. To install, simply download a precompiled binary for Linux, Mac, OpenBSD, or Windows and put it on your $PATH. Easy-to-compile source code is available for users on other platforms.

4. Simple Networking - No custom protocols or TCP ports. Fossil uses ordinary HTTP (or HTTPS or SSH) for all network communications, so it works fine from behind restrictive firewalls, including proxies. The protocol is bandwidth efficient to the point that Fossil can be used comfortably over dial-up.

5. CGI/SCGI Enabled - No server is required, but if you want to set one up, Fossil supports four simple simple server configurations.

6. Autosync - Fossil supports "autosync" mode which helps to keep projects moving forward by reducing the amount of needless forking and merging often associated with distributed projects.

7. Robust & Reliable - Fossil stores content using an enduring file format in an SQLite database so that transactions are atomic even if interrupted by a power loss or system crash. Automatic self-checks verify that all aspects of the repository are consistent prior to each commit. In over seven years of operation, no work has ever been lost after having been committed to a Fossil repository.

Links For Fossil Users:

• "Fuel" is cross-platform GUI front-end for Fossil written in Qt. http://fuelscm.org/. Fuel is an independent project run by a different group of developers.
• Testimonials from satisfied fossil users and Quotes about Fossil and other DVCSes.
• FAQ
• The concepts behind fossil
• Quick Start guide to using fossil
• Questions & Criticisms directed at fossil.
• Compiling and Installing
• Fossil supports embedded documentation that is versioned along with project source code.
• Fossil uses an enduring file format that is designed to be readable, searchable, and extensible by people not yet born.
• A tutorial on branching, what it means and how to do it using fossil.
• The automatic self-check mechanism helps insure project integrity.
• Fossil contains a built-in wiki.
• An Event is a special kind of wiki page associated with a point in time rather than a name.
• Settings control the behaviour of fossil.
• Use SSL to encrypt communication with the server.
• There is a mailing list (with publicly readable archives available for discussing fossil issues.
• Performance statistics taken from real-world projects hosted on fossil.
• How to delete content from a fossil repository.
• How Fossil does password management.
• On-line help.
• Documentation on the TH1 Script Language used to configure the ticketing subsystem.
• A free hosting server for Fossil repositories is available at http://chiselapp.com/.
• How to set up a server for your repository.
• Customizing the ticket system.
• Methods to identify a specific check-in.
• Import and export from and to Git.
• Fossil versus Git.
• Up and running in 5 minutes as a single user (contributed by Gilles Ganault on 2013-01-08).
• How Fossil defends against abuse by spiders and bots.

Links For Fossil Developer:

• Contributing code or documentation to the Fossil project.
• Thoughts On The Design Of Fossil.
• Principles Of Operation
• A Technical Overview Of Fossil.
• The file format used by every content file stored in the repository.
• The format of deltas used to efficiently store changes between file revisions.
• The encoder algorithm used to efficiently generate deltas.
• The synchronization protocol.