use Software Configuration Management?

[Karl Berry]

    I wonder if we would be interested in using a version control system
    for TeX Live? The commercial Perforce (see http://www.perforce.com)
    give free licenses for people developing free software.

Since you ask, my view is that Perforce sucks.  I recommend CVS.

We looked at p4 for work, and it requires a constant connection to the
server -- you can't do any work without it.  It also thinks you should
do everything within p4 -- you have to issue a p4 command just to edit a
file.  Contrast with cvs, where the model is to make a normal directory
you can do normal things in, and only do cvs things when you're checking
in and out.