To comment on the original question, SVN has the following going for it:

* free
* cross-platform
* commercial support
* large installations
* vast community knowledge
* editor/ide/tool integration
* visual UI options
* good administrative tools/practices
* fair security/authentication tools
* written in a common and performant language
* stable

I've used VSS, ClearCase, Perforce(currently at work), CVS, SVN, Darcs, 
SVK, and some others I can't remember. Perforce is very good, but 
expensive. SVK - i do use it but I can't seem to get past my bias 
against Perl. I couldn't even begin to look at Git because I use Windows 
and Mac mostly. Darcs is performant, free, and cross-platform - all good 
- but it doesn't compete against the list above, at least not yet. I'm 
keeping my eye on it, though. I wouldn't use VSS, CVS, or ClearCase 
again, given the choice.

I think this list is why SVN is such an easy choice. None of these are 
perfect, so it comes down to your work style and project needs. 
Distributed systems make more sense for start-ups with all remote devs 
than in big brick-and-mortar enterprises with all on-site development. 
Perforce would be hard to beat if it were free and had a distributed 
option, but I don't see the free thing happening any time soon. Find 
wide adoption and support of Darcs, or decentralization of Subversion, 
and you may find a break-away leader. Until then you need to ask "which 
one fits the way I/we work?".

Hope that helps. :)

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