User centric program product distribution

Abstract

A user centric approach to program product distribution, including a complementary multi-vendor code control system (MVCCS) suitable for use to practice the user centric distribution approach is disclosed. Under the user centric approach, versioning control information of the source/object files of various program products to be installed on various user computer systems are maintained on a user computer system by user computer system basis. Each user computer system or its proxy is provided with a portion or an entire MVCCS to facilitate receipt and storage into a common repository for the user computer system versioning control information of different source/object files of different software vendors, and to facilitate retrieval of selective versions of the different source/object files for the user computer system using versioning control information stored in the common repository for the user computer system. In one embodiment, the MVCCS is further equipped to facilitate receipt and storage into a common library, the different source/object files identified by corresponding universally unique identifiers (UUID), and the versioning control information includes predecessor UUID information. In one embodiment, both the common repository and the common library, as well as the entire MVCCS are disposed on the user computer system.