For many years the fractint team has used simple diff files and occasional complete zipped source packages to communicate versions. This worked well. Everything was public and anyone could follow along. The CVS repository is relatively recent. Jonathan started it and we're still puzzling over how to organize it. Jonathan has put out diffs and source packages for changes he committed to CVS, so no one is cut out; CVS acess is not a prerequisite for permitting. There are two hosts and two CVS repositories. Both of these require shell access on the respective hosts. Damien Jones manages fractint.org users on his host at our request. He has say over who he is willing to give access to - after all, he is donating his hosting to the team. Very few people have access, and not all those who have access use it - it's basically Jonathan and myself. I have purchased space from a shared hosting provider, and hosted fractint.net there (a mirror of fractint.org). We made a copy of CVS and added Rich at his request so he can use CVS help with his refactoring the video interface. I control who has access to fractint.net. It will be mostly Rich's call when to make what he is doing public. He would probably find it distracting to have anyone looking over his shoulder before he's ready. It would be great to have an increase in participation on the developer team. Rich's branch may make that possible, but probably not until he gets it to a working alpha version. We can rethink the mechanics of CVS/Subversion access as needs dictate. I hope this helps expain the current setup. Tim