title: Are merges in subversion more difficult than in Team Foundation System?
body: <p>I'm used to using TFS, and my company is now switching to SVN for a new project (the main reason is to better incorporate our java &amp; .Net codebase under the same source control).</p>
  <p>I am given to understand merges in subversion are hard (Jeff <a href="https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/05/podcast-52/">mentioned this</a> in his latest podcast).</p>
  <ol>
  <li>What are the problems with subversion, when compared to TFS?</li>
  <li>How to mitigate? (withing the bounds of subversion, or as Jeff proposed, choosing another source control)</li>
  </ol>
  <p>One strong feature that TFS offers is its automerge capabilities (greatly improved in TFS2008, although not perfect yet). Most merges don't require any action by the user. Is that the same in subversion?</p>
  <p><strong>Update</strong> - an accepted answer here can only come from someone who has experienced big merges in both <strong>TFS</strong> and <strong>subversion</strong>, and can actually compare &amp; contrast the two. Knowing that &quot;merge in subversion is good&quot; or &quot;TFS is crap&quot; doesn't really help me decide, because it's subjectve. If you can compare to other alternatives, great - it is helpful. But my focus is subversion vs TFS.</p>
  <p>The target team size I'm interested in is 6-30 active developers.</p>
  <p><strong>Update 2</strong> - is there anyone that would make the case that merges in SVN are in fact easier than in TFS (taking tooling into consideration)?</p>