PureCM 2008-3 is designed to facilitate software development more transparently for all those involved. The guiding principle is the intertwining of software configuration management with the development process such that change requests can be linked directly with corresponding changes. The graphical user interface, the PureCM server and the command line clients support the Fedora, Red Hat, SUSE and Ubuntu Linux variants. PureCM can also integrate with Eclipse environments. Along with version 3.0, the company also released a proxy server for distributed teams, included in the standard developer license. Because the proxy server caches repository data in a local database, the access speed increases significantly compared to accessing the remote server each time, by a factor of 18 according to the company. Software control remains centralized thanks to ongoing data synchronization so that all developers have the same informational base.

Image diffing in PureCM

For one thing, PureCM 2008-3 promises higher speed: data transfers in LANs and WANs should be five times faster than with PureCM 2008-2. Another significant enhancement is the component manager that allows a better overview and control of software tools and libraries. Also new is a diffing tool for image and MS Word files without the need to track diffs with filename changes. Users can visualize changes side by side in the graphical interface.

The list of enhancements for this release is on the PureCM website. A free, fully functioning 2-user eval version is available here. PureCM supports various Linux and Windows systems, Solaris 8 and later and Mac OS X+ clients. Purchase price (here) is $1,000 for the starter pack and $1,500 for the 5-user pack for concurrent developers; for non-developers the price starts at $300 for a 5-user pack.