diff --git includes/VersioncontrolRepository.php includes/VersioncontrolRepository.php
index cfd9538..e24d8c5 100644
--- includes/VersioncontrolRepository.php
+++ includes/VersioncontrolRepository.php
@@ -521,6 +521,27 @@ abstract class VersioncontrolRepository implements VersioncontrolEntityInterface
     return NULL;
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Acquire a lock on data for this repository.
+   *
+   * @param   float
+   *   The number of seconds this lock should persist before being cleared.
+   *
+   * @return  boolean
+   *   Whether the lock was successfully acquired or not.
+   */
+  public function acquireLock($time = 60) {
+    return lock_acquire('versioncontrol_' . $this->name . '_lock', $time);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Release a previously acquired lock on this repository.
+   */
+  public function releaseLock() {
+    lock_release('versioncontrol_' . $this->name . '_lock');
+  }
+
+
   //ArrayAccess interface implementation FIXME soooooooo deprecated
   public function offsetExists($offset) {
     return isset($this->$offset);
@@ -762,4 +783,5 @@ class VersioncontrolRepositoryUrlHandler {
   public function getTrackerUrl($issue_id) {
     return strtr($this->urls['tracker'], array('%d' => $issue_id));
   }
+
 }
diff --git versioncontrol.install versioncontrol.install
index f16c8ca..296b121 100644
--- versioncontrol.install
+++ versioncontrol.install
@@ -676,7 +676,7 @@ function versioncontrol_update_6301() {
 }
 
 /**
- * Add the 'updated', 'updated_method' and 'locked' columns.
+ * Add the 'updated' and 'updated_method' columns.
  *
  * These fields were previously stored as members of a serialized array stored
  * in the data column but this could be problematic for views integration and