Welcome to the Perforce Public Depot

About Perforce and the Public Depot

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One of Perforce's many distinguishing features is that it can be used over the internet to track shared software development. A Perforce server stores files in a depot, and developers all over the world can submit changes to the depot. The orderly management of file changes and merges is provided by the Perforce SCM system.

If you haven't heard about Perforce, the Fast Software Configuration Management System, head over to our home page and read all about it.

We've set up this Public Depot to enable software developers outside of our company to contribute to the growing body of supporting programs and documentation of interest to our users. Among the first open source development projects we've initiated into the Public Depot are WebKeeper, an Apache Web Server module for accessing files in a Perforce depot, and Jam/MR, a fully portable alternative to make(1).

If you're interested in contributing to any of the software or documentation in the Public Depot, read on to find out how. Or, if you're simply interested in seeing how Perforce works, you'll find the Public Depot to be an accessible model of real, distributed, concurrent source management in action.

The Depot Roadmap

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public
		perforce				Perforce
				utils		Conversion scripts, browsers, triggers, daemons, and other supporting programs.
				faq		Frequently-asked questions and other user-contributed documentation.
				webkeeper		Perforce WebKeeper module for the Apache HTTP server
		jam				Jam/MR
guest
		your_name_here				Guest branches

How to Browse the Public Depot

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If you're simply curious about our Public Depot, please browse freely. Here's how:

• Start here to browse the Public Depot using P4DB, a suite of CGI scripts contributed by Fredric Fredricson.

• We also have WebKeeper^TM installed, so if you know exactly which depot file you want to see, you can give it to your web browser as a URL, using http://public.perforce.com as the root. For example, to look at this file:

  	//public/jam/src/jam.c

  You'd use this URL:

  	http://public.perforce.com/public/jam/src/jam.c

• Finally, if you are a Perforce user, you can use any p4 or P4Win reporting commands to browse the Public Depot. Just set your P4PORT to:

  	public.perforce.com:1666

  (p4 and P4Win are Perforce client programs which can be downloaded for free. p4 is a command-line program available for all platforms, and P4Win is a Windows GUI available for Windows 95 and Windows NT.)

  Note: We periodically purge client specs created by unregistered users. You are free to recreate clients with p4 or P4win, but unless you're a registered user, don't count on having a persistent client spec in the depot. See below for instructions on becoming a registered user.

How to Contribute to the Public Depot

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Registering	To contribute to the Public Depot, you'll need to become a registered user. To apply, please send email to info@perforce.com, describing the tools, scripts, or documents you'd like to contribute. You must provide your full name, which we will use to assign your Perforce user ID. (E.g., if your name is Sammy Davis, Jr, your user ID in the Perforce Public Depot will be sammy_davis_jr.)
Client Setup	If you're not already using Perforce, you'll need a Perforce client program for your development platform. Go to our downloads page and download the client for your platform. Follow the instructions in the tutorial to set up a client workspace with a guest branch view for yourself.
Submitting Files	You are free to submit any files or changes to your guest branch. If you're new to Perforce, see the tutorial for a guided example of how to work on files. When you have something in your guest branch that is completed and ready to be integrated into the public branch, please email the curator of the project you're targeting. Curators are listed in the index.html files at the top level of each project (see the Depot Roadmap, above). The curator will review your files and integrate them into the public branch.
Notes on Access Permissions	There are two depots in the Public Depot: //public and //guest. All users, registered or not, have read access to all files in both depots. All users have read access to all changelist descriptions, user specs, client specs, etc. Only registered users have write access, and only to the files in his/her guest branch. (That is, you can only submit files in the //guest/your_name path.) Only Perforce staff, and "curators" designated by Perforce staff, have write access to files in the //public depot.
More Information	All registered users should read the Public Depot Tutorial. Users new to Perforce should visit our Technical Documentation page.

Copyright © 1998, 1999 Perforce Software

You're browsing a file stored as $Id: //public/index.html#16 $ in the Perforce Public Depot.

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