TFS vs open source alternatives? [closed]

Question

We're currently in the process of setting up a source control/build/and more-server for .NET development and we're thinking about either utilizing the Team Foundation Server (which costs a lot of dough) or combining several open source options, such as SourceForge Enterprise/GForge and Subversion and CruiseControl.net and so on. Has anyone walked down the full blown OSS road or is it TFS only if you want to get it right and get to work soon?

Answer 1

We looked at TFS, but ended up going with Subversion + Trac + VisualSVN. We don't do CI right now but Cruisecontrol would be what we'd use, I think.

I started using Trac with numerous open-source projects, and it's a great. It's really only a portion of what TFS does, so you'll have to make a decision there -- if you use everything, TFS probably does a better job of tying it all together. Trac is a wiki/bug tracker/source browser. Everything is linked - when you type in the name of a WikiPage or say "Fix bug #1234" in a commit message, whenever you see that message in Trac the links go to the right places. It is tool that helps you do your job and but stays out of the way, generally.

VisualSVN is a great bridge between TortoiseSVN (a Subversion client) and VisualStudio, and greatly improves productivity. They have a free trial, and it's not very expensive afterwards ($50/user), but well worthwhile.

One possible downside to Trac is in a Windows world, it is a pain to get working on IIS. I've installed Trac many times, but got frustrated quickly trying to get it working properly. I ended up installing Apache on a different IP (could also use different port) and then it was seamless.

Except for one person on my team (who had a tiny bit of experience), no one had ever used subversion before. A couple had used VSS, and thats all. Everyone was pretty skeptical, but I'd say within a few days they were all converts. After fully learning Trac and getting used to everything (a few days more), everyone is totally sold and loves it.

Answer 2

I would agree strongly with the point that it is only worth using TFS if you know exactly what you need it for. The OSS-based, cheap or free add-ins like Visual SVN and TestDriven.Net are so good that integration with VS is seamless already.

Answer 3

My work is currently using a mostly OSS build process with Cruise Control as the engine and it is great. I would suggest that if you don't know why you would need TFS, it's probably not worth the cost.

The thing you have to keep in mind with the OSS stuff is that the software has either been in use by the Java crew for years previously, or the software is a port of similar Java code. It is robust and is suitable for purpose.

Microsoft cannot ship OSS code, which is why they have to re-implement a lot of Open Source stuff. So, no, it is not necessary, and there have been millions of projects shipped on that stack. The flip side is that there is also a lot of nice features that you get with TFS that you won't (easily) get with the OSS stack, such as integration with your bug/feature tracking software.

Answer 4

I thought I'd throw in a new perspective that can be taken with a grain of salt because I haven't tried it yet, but I plan on using Bitten for CI in an upcoming project. This runs atop Trac+SVN, both great tools that I've used for many projects successfully.

Answer 5

The TFS stack is far more than source control and a CI/nightly build setup. Think about project management, bug reports and it all adds up to something more than just CruiseControl, SVN and NAnt. Just the reports alone might be worth the investment. And also remember that if you're a MSDN subscriber/ISV gold partner/etc. you might get some of this for free...

Answer 6

It is worth mentionning that best alternative to a wide range of TFS features are not necessarily OSS, but low-budget commercial, like NDepend for code quality and architecture exploration, NCover for code coverage, TestDriven.NET for testing nested in IDE ...