Could someone explain to me what CVS is and how do you use it in plain english? I never understood what this was all about. Thanks.

CVS is a program that allows many people to work with the same files. It's very popular among programmers, but it's helpful in more cases. Imag 6 peopel working with the same files when they have to synchronize their work. Simple e-mail method (modify and send result to others) doesn't work. CVS uses one repository (place on server where everything is kept) where everyone copies modified files to. CVS keeps trace of all changes and allows others to upgrade their copies (when there's a conflict, it also tells you about it). It also allows to get any previous version.

How to use it? There are many commands... ('man cvs' has a list). What do you want to do with it?

Its also useful for regular users, because you can synchronize with the CVS directory of a program, and get the bleeding edge developers version of the program to play with. It also allows you to easily update your version of the program.

And some projects only have stable releases very infrequently, so getting a CVS version is almost necessary. GAIM use to be like this for a while.