[p4] Was Perforce ever called "SourceDepot" ? (And did it save Window s XP development?)

[Chris Newcombe]

A fascinating presentation on the entire history of Windows NT development,
by one of their senior engineers.
http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix-win2000/invitedtalks/lucovsky_html/index
.htm

Partial summary: For years (through Win2000) they were crippled by a slow,
non-branching SCM system which serialized all development (e.g. all
check-ins required explicit email permission). Then (in 1999) they selected
a new system called SourceDepot, which basically saved the day for Windows
XP and has transformed the development culture.

I'd never heard of SourceDepot before, and a Google search found almost no
references.  But it did find the following (snipped) message in the Perforce
mailing lists...


Jos Backus josb at cncdsl.com
Wed, 24 Jan 2001 17:22:45 -0800 

% p4 help undoc

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!       ***********
    Unsupported or obsolete SourceDepot client commands:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!        ***********
        admin      Perform administrative operations on the server
        dirs       List subdirectories of a given depot directory
        flush      Fake a 'sd sync' by not moving files
        get        Synonym for 'sd sync'
        refresh    Refresh the contents of an unopened file
        reresolve  Repeat a previous integration merge


So is SourceDepot really Perforce? Perhaps MS don't want to use the new name
because of the potential bad press for VSS?

Chris