A software configuration management method and apparatus provide a respective workspace for each developer. Each workspace (i) defines a subject software configuration as being developed by the respective developer, and (ii) has a respective file area holding shared files and private files corresponding to the subject software configuration. A team repository holds immutable versions of shared files resulting from developers' respective workspaces and checked into the team repository. The team repository also provides state of checked-in files of developer workspaces. Files are referenced with respect to both namespace of file areas of developer workspaces and namespace of the team repository. Employed in each file area are universally unique identifiers of at least each file of the file area which has been checked in to the team repository.