[cvsnt] Is this possible? (Newbie)

[Matt Neimeyer]

I'm kind of being tossed into the deep end with regard to "source file
management" for one of our products and I'm trying to see if there is an easier
way. I apologize if I'm not asking the right way...

I've been looking at CVSNT's Merge Points....

Our problem is that we customize a PHP Application for each of our clients. So
we have 40-50 source folders that are 90-95% the same. When we get a new client
we copy the "Master" and start customizing it. If someone finds a bug or comes
up with a nifty request that we want to port to everyone we have to diff from
the customized program back to the master, then re-diff that change back out to
the other clients. That's an all day process (to carefully diff everything and
make sure their customizations are not screwed up.)

We do it this way because "that's the way it's done". I'm trying to find a
better solution.

Will MergePoints allow me to use Branches to control the common code? So that
when I make a change to a common file that is NOT customized per client it
propigates automatically? Or even better, that files that are customized with a
common portion could be updated. (Lines 1-20 and 30-EOF are always the same....)

Am I'm completely off my rocker? Is it going to be just as much work to do this
in CVS as it would be on the file system? Any advice?

Thanks!