SCM

SCM is concerned with answering the question: somebody did something, how can one reproduce it? Most often, the issue will not be to reproduce it identically, but with controlled, incremental changes. Answering the question will thus be a matter of comparing different results, and analysing their differences. In traditional CM, the focus was typically on controlled creation of relatively simple products. Nowadays, the challenge is to deal with relatively minor increments under one's own control, in the context of a complex given system.

Note that the terminology, as well as its history, is controversial, and hard to establish.

Tool vendors, as well as academics, may find an interest in introducing variants for differentiation purposes, sometimes trying so to reacquire pre-established acronyms.

Examples of related concepts impacting on the acronyms are Revision Control, Version Control, Source Control, Source Code, Change Management, Configuration Item, Software Configuration, Change Set, Baseline.

In particular, the former vendor, Atria, later Rational Software, now a part of IBM, is known to have used SCM as Software Configuration Management.

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