A generic model for semantics-based versioning in projects

Large projects generally involve a number of phases and evolve over a period of time. Several revisions of the individual artifacts consisting of the project take place during the various phases. These revisions and refinements are normally captured as different versions using configuration/version management tools. But the semantics of these refinements with respect to the project are not captured by existing mechanisms. In addition to the above, a change in the semantics of a project artifact may require suitable changes in other related artifacts. Existing mechanisms for configuration management do not provide mechanisms for change propagation based on the change semantics. In this paper, we propose a generic model for semantics-based version management in projects, which can be built over existing tools. The model also provides support for capturing how changes propagate in a project. We then elucidate the generality of the model by applying it to a project involving a computer aided design (CAD) framework and a software development project (SDP). © 2000 IEEE.