--- Johnny Hughes mailing-lists@hughesjr.com wrote:
On Fri, 2006-10-13 at 10:01 -0400, danieldk@pobox.com wrote:
Hi Karanbir,
The CentOS Project provides packages in addition
to the packages from
RH's sources. We need to ensure that these
packages are tested in a user
environment for a while, and only released to
the public via the
mirror.centos.org network once there is some
reasonable surety as to the
functional and bugs situation with the package.
I have a question if I may: what should the
packages be tested for?
- Readiness of the packaged software for
enterprise environments.
- Quality of the packaging.
If both, what has most weight? If [1] is
important, I suppose the quality
can partly be tested with regression tests (if the
software includes
regression tests, IMO all enterprise-class
software should). [2]
specifically requires people with enough knowledge
of packaging to go over
it.
Daniel,
The stuff in the testing repo has already been initially tested (and packaged) by one of the CentOS Developers. It doesn't get in there if it is not at least WorksForMe quality for someone who should understand enterprise ready.
Now I not suggesting that it is perfect, thus the need for testing.
What we need is people to use the products, make sure they work as expected, and tell us it does or does not work for them.
point is that peoples usually do not provide feedback, you already know that, they give feedback if:
1- they think the developer think the products are ok and ready (in your case the package is officialy out) 2- are too excited about the product because it solve a great problem 3- they are officialy beta tester (or feel like that) so they feel an obligation to give feedback
I can think another reasons ...
I would settle for ... I downloaded it and it works for me or doesn't work for me because of this. If we can get at least that much participation, we can fix it and get it back out, if required.
I guess a balance approach is to move the packages from testing when: 1- some amount of peoples download the packages from testing _and_ 2- nobody complain about the packages in testing
and then be prepared for more feedback :-) I know this is unwanted but I can't think a way to avoid it because: 1- not all core developers needs or use the packages so not all can fully test the package (unlike what happen when there is only one package or product: linux kernel, apache or CentOS distribution as a whole). 2- users usually do not look into the testing repo, just developers (not only core developers) know where to look, and again not everybody are interested or has the time to test it.
so, finally, my adivice is: release when you, core developer, think is ready and be prepared to re-release after users, and not only developers, give feedback if they do :-)
cu roger
__________________________________________ RedHat Certified Engineer ( RHCE ) Cisco Certified Network Associate ( CCNA )
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