Subversion (svn for short) is a version control system that beats the shit out of CVS. See the subversion homepage for more information. Excalibur uses subversion for version control.
After downloading the client, point it towards the excalibur repository at
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/excalibur/
(note you can also browse the repository online from that url). To check out the latest and greatest bleeding edge excalibur source tree, use a command like this:
svn checkout https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/excalibur/trunk/ excalibur-trunk
You can browse the repository online through
http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/excalibur/?root=Apache-SVN
A rather more restricted web interface is offered by viewing the repository directly:
https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/excalibur/
If you're an excalibur, cocoon or
james committer, you have write access to
that repository using that same URL. Before you can do anything, you need to set up
a svn password. To do so, log in to svn.apache.org using SSH, and enter the command
svnpasswd. Pick a safe password!
Now, when you make changes, you can commit them with your username/password combination. Ie:
cd excalibur-trunk
echo "test" > test.txt
svn add test.txt
svn commit --username your-name --password your-password --message "Trying out svn"
The setup the ASF uses is pretty much the one described in chapter 6 of the svn book. The repository lives in /x1/svn on minotaur.apache.org, with the important files related to authorization living in that directory, too.
It works fine. Go and google.