Martin Schlander wrote:
One big problem with the current situation is that noone knows what to test and when. One of the main reasons I usually don't test early alphas is that I expect everything to change dramatically later on anyway, hence thinking testing is probably pointless at that point anyway - but I guess some components _are_ ready for widespread testing and that point, we just need to know which.
I partially agree with this. When 11.0 GM was released, there was a critical bug in the installation process which affected only Japanese users. https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=385172#c34 The most annoying was, that the bug seemed to be fixed in RC1, which we non-Novell persons can test, but reproduced in RC4, which only Novell persons can test, and the bug was not fixed in GM. However, during the 11.1 release process, there was a call for feature testing. http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-testing/2008-11/msg00005.html But you can see most of the Test Results for listed features remain "Idle". http://en.opensuse.org/Testing:Features_11.1 We could know *what to test and when* in this case, but as far as I can see, not so many people participated the testing. I think we have to analyze why many people don't have keen interest to testing. Do we need to spread the word much more ? Do we need to clarify what and how things to be tested and where the result should be reported ? Or, do we need to prepare benefits for dedicated testers ? IMHO, although testing itself is very important, it would be more important to figure out a way to participate testing easily, so that as many people as possible can feel "openSUSE is *our* distribution".
Additionally maybe some automation could be set up where openfate would spam this list when a new feature reaches a certain status, so as to let us know it might be something that needed testing.
openFATE screening team has just begun its activities and we are now brainstorming what can and should we do. So your opinion will be inputted. ;-) Best, -- _/_/ Satoru Matsumoto - openSUSE Member - Japan _/_/ _/_/ Marketing/Weekly News/openFATE Screening Team _/_/ _/_/ mail: helios_reds_at_gmx.net / irc: HeliosReds _/_/ _/_/ http://blog.geeko.jp/author/heliosreds _/_/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-testing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-testing+help@opensuse.org