Is there a fundamental difference between backups and version control?

Question

How does version control differ from plain backups?

Let\'s forget about the feature decoration, and concentrate on the soul of version control. Is there a clear line

Answer 1

I think you can form arguments for either lumping backups together with VCS, or for treating them as entirely separate. But I think you can't avoid talking about individual features of a VCS, as it's the features that differntiate a VCS from a backup solution:

• Keeping track of who made what change.
• Attaching a note to each change to explain the reasons behind the change.
• (Mostly) concurrent access by several users, possibly from very different locations.

In my eyes, these features are defining. If you ignore them, a VCS is essentially the same as an incremental backup solution.

If you look at a distributed VCS, you might find a stronger notion of keeping track of branches than in a non-distributed VCS. That is, there may not be a single head/trunk branch, but several at any given time. That's something no backup solution I've come across considers.