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I realized today ~anyone can experience the benefits of version control without needing a webhosting account. Because an account at Unfuddle.com provides your own Subversion repository — to which you have unfettered http access — as one piece of even their low-end free account. (Granted, the free account is constrained to 15MB storage.)

Of course, for people already knowledgeable about version control and full-service webhosting, this is no big deal. But I notice there are lots of people for whom version control of everyday documents is a new idea, and who’d have no idea how to begin even if they wanted to. This opens the door immediately.

I encountered Unfuddle for the first time today; for collaborative project management, it’s hugely compelling AFAICT. I just observe their generous provision of a Subversion repository to anyone who asks is beneficial all by itself.

Backstory: The handful of Windows users to whom I’ve shown the benefits of version control — especially Windows-integrated version control via the excellent (and also free) graphical client TortoiseSVN — have said, Dude, this is one of the most powerful tools you’ve ever turned me on to.

A little later …
I see that as of Sept. 26, 2006, another free starter Subversion hosting account is available from myVersionControl (announcement):

The outcome of all of this is that we are proud to be able to offer to everyone a fully featured subversion hosting account. All the features of the pay accounts are available, the only caveat being that you are restricted to a total file size of 4mb.

And of course, several other players also offer for-pay full-service Subversion hosting sans a free starter offering:

• Versionshelf (offers 30-day free trial)
• CVSDude [ah, I see provides 2MB storage for free]
• Wush.net

Disclaimer: I’ve always hosted my own version control tools (Subversion, SVK, Mercurial) so I can’t say I’m recommending any of these providers based on first-hand experience. I have however signed up for the free Unfuddle and myVersionControl plans to evaluate for future use and recommendation to others.

I just got access to my Strongspace account today. 20GiB of secure offsite storage. Oh yeah.

I’m delighted to discover that, in addition to the standard browser-based access and ssh-based access (via sftp, scp, rsync), the following two unsupported tools work, too!

• Unison (v2.13.16)
• Subversion (via svn+ssh only)

Unison does a highly efficient 2-way sync across a network. Here’s useful tippage from Philip and Krzysztof.

Strongspace’s greatest potential value to me has always been for housing Subversion repositories, but so far the official stance has been that’s not offered (one of the strangest business stances I’ve ever seen). I hadn’t realized how to make Subversion access work anyway, though, until today’s priceless Subversion tip from Andy, who is my hero for the day.

Probably more to come as I play further.