Best practice to maintain source code under version control with multiple companies?

Question

I'm wondering if there is any best practice for maintaining your source code under version control among different companies. In Open Source there is a maintainer, who receives patches, decides on them and applies them. But what about closed sourced projects where different companies get different workloads and just commit them to the trunk and branches? Is this maintainer concept applicable to a project on which multiple companies work on?

Answer 1

You can choose from a wide range of version control systems. (Not only subversion) With the "versioning" concept you are safe that no one damages the project permanently. So there is no need for a manual approval process, especially when there are contracts for example between the participating companies.

I'd also set up a commit mailinglist so you have some kind of peer review of changes. So no changes can be done without anyone noticing them.

If applicable set up some kind of continous integration environment to keep the quality up.

I don't understand the question about the branches. The decision whether to use them or not is IMHO not depending on the fact that the commiters are employed in the same company or not.