How to organize control access to source code ?

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1184676647.068641.3500 at d30g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
Paul Boddie  <paul at boddie.org.uk> wrote:
>On 17 Jul, 01:16, Succe... at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for your response,
>> But I want to know if there is a process or best practices, to give
>> not the access to all of the project. in other words, must every
>> developer work on the entire copy of the project locally ?
>
>You probably want to split the project up into several individual
>projects (as perceived from a technical perspective), which can then
>be protected using whichever mechanisms are available. Not only will
>it be easier to introduce various access controls - for example, you
>might have a bunch of different CVS modules (or similar things) which
>are then easier to administer and apply access controls to - but
>you'll also reduce the undesirable side-effects that come with a
>monolithic project with lots of people hacking on different stuff that
>inadvertently breaks other stuff.
>
>> Or to work just on his module and manage a process of integration, and
>> if there is any Agile practices for this problem.
>
>I'm not sure what the overlap is between "agile development" and
>restrictive access controls, but another approach might be to use a
>totally distributed version control system and then manage the
>restrictions when merging changes. You'd probably remain "agile"
>whilst exercising the control you require.
>
>Paul
>

I think the answers to this point are missing emphases I can't make
the time now to articulate.  The prospects are actually better than
what we've been saying:  individual developers *do* have access to
everything (and they like that), but the authoritative version of
the software is the one sequestered away in the version control
system, and you gain all sorts of access control and auditability
through *that* mechanism.  So:  I think what the original questioner
needs to do is read up on version control and configuration manage-
ment.  <URL: http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=8472/ur0308f/ >,
for example, is very light background reading that I suspect the 
original questioner does not yet have.