hello all, i'm one of those users "...lurking on this mailing list to 'check the pulse' of the development" as Andrea put it :-)
i agree it's a great idea and am willing to help, but pls. consider this: * we include GeoServer in our application but we can not, or do not, always include the latest released version --for lots of reasons that cannot be discussed here. the end result is that while for example the current GeoServer is at version 2.0 (unstable) / 1.7.6 (stable), we have installations out there that have GeoServer versions 1.5.4b and 1.6.4b! * 2-3 days testing is not enough. for my type of application, at least 1-week is more like it. having a 4-6 weeks notice would also mean that this testing period can be better planned. * may be listing the general aspects/features that Users are interested in (and are invited to) testing would also help describe the coverage of the tests. such a list could include: WMS <version>, WFS <version>, WFS-T <version>, WCS <version>, Datastore Extension <type>, installation, administration, documentation, REST, GeoWebCache, I18N, <extension>s, etc... also by OS. * while this is not completely related to the idea of Users helping w/ testing, i think it affects the Quality of GeoServer releases: i would like to see an official "end-of-maintenance" date for every GeoServer official release. this should not hinder the concept of "release often" but IMO would improve the Quality factor of the/any release. of course it may add a burden on the developers when deciding about new features, bug fixes, etc... but again IMO it would increase the already high quality of the GeoServer product. Justin Deoliveira wrote: > I think it is a great idea, crowdsourcing qa to the user community. > However I think one thing that is lacking (or maybe just not emphasized) > are the the benefits to the users. Any issues they find will become > critical priority (i would assume) and fixed before the release (if > within reason). This has the potential to offset a lot of risk of people > upgrading. > > Andrea Aime wrote: >> Hi all (devs and users lurking alike), >> I'm writing this mail to see if we can, as a community, improve >> the level of testing each GeoServer release gets before >> being released. >> >> GeoServer QA improve a lot since two years ago, we now have >> thousands of tests running during the builds, continuous >> build servers checking each commit, work is underway to >> run this checks on other OS/JVM, we run quite a number >> of OGC CITE test suites before each release. >> >> Despite our best efforts some obvious bugs slip in. >> What we need is some interactive testing, real world, >> against existing applications, made by human beings. >> People trying to configure new layers, test the >> release against their production setup, check various >> client applications do work. >> >> We have quite a large user community out there (900+ >> subcscribers on the users ml last time I checked), if >> only a few of them stepped in to become testers it could >> make a large difference. Maybe someone is interested in keeping >> GS working fine with uDig, or with QGis, or just check their >> in house application works as expected. Someone else might >> be interested in something more formalized, like manual test >> scripts to be executed against a release candidate, but imho >> it would be better if people would self organise and find >> some kind of testing they have an interest into running. >> >> If some users are interested in doing this we could have >> a "pens up" period of maybe 2-3 days before a release in >> which those adventurers test nightlies and report regressions >> (to be fixed) and new bugs (to be evaluated by severity). >> >> Developers, what do you think? >> Users, I know quite some of you are lurking on this mailing >> list to "check the pulse" of the development and see what's >> boiling in the pot. This could be an occasion to step up >> your involvement and work for a better GeoServer. >> >> Comments? >> >> Cheers >> Andrea >> >> > > -- cheers; rsn ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july _______________________________________________ Geoserver-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geoserver-devel
