My Library

Practical Perforce
Written by Laura Wingerd
Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN 0-596-10185-6

Bear in mind that I was responsible to introduce a new software configuration management system at the former business unit Business Integrations of the company Danet GmbH in 2001. I could convince my colleagues and chieves that Perforce is a great tool for this purpose. For several reasons I love using Perforce even though I'm a supporter of Open Source Software as Subversion is:

  • You have full access to the really comprehensive documentation provided by Perforce Software's website without the coercion in subscribing. I would like to emphasize that the documentation leaves almost nothing to be desired.
  • Perforce is a matured software. The company Perforce Software was founded by the SCM specialist Christopher Seiwald in 1995. The company aims without intermission to implement features requested by the Perforce administrators who have the privilege to consult the support.
  • Perforce is despite its functional range a very slim and reliable software.
    In the two years I maintained the Perforce server comprising 15 licences only one crash occurred. At that time the machine was exhaustively stressed by testers. The result was a lack of memory and Perforce was not able to spawn new processes.
  • Perforce is available for all popular platforms. Pay attention to the web page labeled Perforce Downloads: Browse by Platform.
  • Perforce needs only low administration efforts. I could keep the focus on my activities as developer.
  • Indeed, I experienced that Perforce Software's support is very courteous, very fast and very competent. I had a lot of fruitful discussions with Tony Smith and Steve Borrett, both from Perforce Software Europe, UK.
  • Perforce Software runs a mailing list (even though unsupported) that enables all Perforce users to discuss Perforce user and administration issues with the Perforce community.
  • Perforce Software conducts a generous licence policy. For instance, on the 16th April 2010 the company stated on the web page labeled Perforce Downloads: The Essentials:

    "You may use software downloaded from Perforce for any purpose you want and for as long as you like, provided no modifications are made to the software.

    The Perforce server supports only two users and five client workspaces unless used with a Perforce License. We will be happy to issue you a free Evaluation License to remove the user/workspace restrictions for a limited time."

    Moreover:
    Assume you acquired a license granting you the privilege to contact the support. If you decide later that you are no longer willing to pay the support fee for the next (support) year, you will only loose the support and update options but no feature of the currently used release will be disabled.
    Pay attention to the web page labeled Perforce Licensing & Pricing to get a complete survey of Perforce Software's license policies.

By the way, in November 2003 I was a participant of the first Perforce German User Group meeting.