On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 17:06 -0500, Jerry Amundson wrote: > On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 8:50 AM, Phil Schaffner > <Philip.R.Schaffner at nasa.gov> wrote: > > A message on centos-users has raised a question in my mind about the > > openness of the QA process. I'm pretty sure that there is no desire to > > greatly expand the QA team, but on the other hand a few more serious QA > > testers might be worthwhile. I started to reply to the message below > > with a link to an announcement of opportunity to join the QA team from > > the centos-devel list, and possibly to add a bit to the "Contribute" > > page, but decided it might be better to bounce the idea around here instead. > > I see a need to bounce this around some more. The bottom line, whether > or not the CentOS core group wants to admit it, is this : more people > + more testing = more love. > There are, of course, details as to the "people", and the "testing" > (and for that matter, the "love" :-), but that concerns the Who and > the What. > So, here, we can start the `How' of QA Accessibility. How do I, for > example, become involved in QA to help CentOS become even better? > > The "C" in CentOS is meant as "the community", not as "the clique", > and that should apply towards every facet of the distribution. > That said, however, I also recognize the core group's desire to limit > noise, etc. I think the point here is that through *discussion and > documentation* we can reach a middle ground which adds benefit to > CentOS as a whole, but without further burden to the development core. Still bouncing... There are a range of opinions floating around about the openness of developing and testing new releases. Let's limit the current discussion to the topic at hand: QA accessibility. Seems to go something like this - not all the cases below are necessarily mutually exclusive. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Public Beta open to all, with appropriate warnings about the dangers of use on production machines. Pros: Lots of people testing and finding/reporting bugs and issues. Could complement case #2 or #3. Cons: High noise level on centos-users and/or centos-devel. Possibility of increased support burden on core team members. Possible negative "publicity" and bad vibes from users with broken installs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. More open process based on the current QA model. Document and publicize the process for joining the QA team on the Wiki, and/or www.centos.org. Point seemingly qualified people to the process on MLs and fora. Allow more vetted members to join QA. I'd suggest going as far as making the QA list world-readable. Pros: More people testing and finding/reporting bugs and issues. Better coverage of hardware platforms and wider/deeper software testing. Cons: More traffic on QA list. Not necessarily a bad thing, but this is what I am advocating, so I may be prejudiced. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Current QA process - don't mess with it. Pros: Working pretty well. Cons: Coverage of the range of hardware platforms and software testing has a lot of room for improvement. People disgruntled about lack of openness about the process. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What have I missed, and who falls where on the spectrum? Phil