In the days before a release we'd like to be able to prevent developers from committing files to the SubVersion branch, unless a team leader has reviewed and approved the changes (in which case they would make a temporary change to allow this).
Previously we used ClearCase, in which this was relatively easy to do.
Since the svn:lock command only works on a per-file basis, we are uncertain if we can emulate this behaviour in SubVersion.
What do you do?
You can have a look at GUI svn clients which usually have richer interface/functionality set than a command line one. For example, I'm using TortoiseSVN which has options Get Lock/Release Lock applicable for locking all files in the selected folder recursively. BTW, it also has convenient option of making tag/branch and switching to it as one action.