GNUCash Quality (was Re: 1.8.2 Release candidate)
Derek Atkins
warlord at MIT.EDU
Wed Mar 5 14:11:14 CST 2003
Chris, I do agree that a simple enumeration of the changes between
1.8.1 and 1.8.2-rc1 would be relatively simple and not too much of a
hardship. You need to compile the list anyways; might as well do it
incrementally.
-derek
Kevin Benton <kevinb at bentonfam.org> writes:
> Let's look at it this way...
>
> Joe Creator: Would you mind testing my software for me?
> Guinea Pig: What is it you want me to test?
> Joe Creator: Download the software and see for yourself.
> Guinea Pig: I'm a busy guy. I don't have a lot of time to fix problems
> if what you're giving me impacts me very negatively. What changes did
> you make?
> Joe Creator: Look, either download the software and test it or just say
> no.
> Guinea Pig: Of course, if I knew what I was getting into, I might be
> willing to test your software, but since you put it that way, no.
>
> Sorry Chris, I disagree. Any time I make changes to something where I
> work and ask someone to test my changes, its only respectful that I
> include what I'm asking them to test before they start testing rather
> than making them go download the software and look for the list of
> changes. Then, they can make the determination of whether or not to
> become a guinea pig or not without the time spent downloading. If
> nothing else, posting a link to the changelog (by itself) would be nicer
> than "you should know enough about building from source to find the
> changelog"
>
> Think about it this way - we are all busy people, yourself included, I'm
> sure. If you want to get my help (as another busy person), making it
> easier for me to know what I'm "signing up for" helps me understand just
> how much risk I'll be taking and helps make sure all your testers see
> what they should be testing. I know I may be "preaching to the choir"
> here, but hey, we're all volunteers, right? :)
>
> <soap box mode>
> What am I trying to do? GNUCash has the potential to win an awful lot
> of Quicken users if we keep software quality up. Intuit also releases
> intermediate updates between its major versions (just like we're
> proposing with 1.8.2). What would happen with Quicken if Intuit didn't
> do a good job of pre-testing its intermediate releases with a limited
> set of "real-world" customers? How about the same with MS Money? At a
> company I worked for, they had a problem with releasing software far too
> often and not giving their QA team enough time and information to
> adequately test the software prior to release. They also didn't get
> enough testers (people in the company outside the QA dept.) to help them
> test the software, often because testers didn't know what to look for
> because they didn't know what had changed. It was killing my team's
> ability to manage the production environment properly because the
> product itself was broken more often than not. I wound up being a part
> of the team that required engineering to publish release notes to the
> wider audience. What did that do for us? It helped us get more testers
> by helping them know what they were getting into. Net result - improved
> testing yielding improved software quality yielding improved customer
> satisfaction.
> </soap box mode>
>
> I would love to see GNUCash be able to compete with Quicken and Money.
> We're getting closer to that point. The challenge is setting it as a
> goal, then doing what it takes to get us there. One of the "habits"
> we'll need to develop to be truly competitive with the commercial
> packages is to make sure our QA process is very tight for all our
> releases, something the commercial software developers know quite well.
> We all know this is a -devel mailing list. Let's make sure the -devel
> doesn't ignore the needs of the -tester or the -users :)
>
> I don't know if I have the time to do this, or if anyone is already
> steering it, but heck, if you guys want me to be a leader on the QA
> front, I'm willing to consider it. I don't want to step on any toes or
> get anyone's feelings hurt (Chris - read that to say I'm not trying to
> take your job). I'm not saying we're doing a bad job, but like anyone,
> I do think we can do better by changing a habit or two here or there and
> being more process sensitive. Frankly, I don't know if I want the job,
> but hey, GNUCash is a critical part of Linux being able to kill M$'s
> desktop monopoly. I'd like to see them face some real competition and
> if it comes from the OpenSource world, fantastic. :)
>
> What do you guys think about the whole thing? Should we start a
> gnucash-tester list? If we were to start a gnucash-tester mailing list,
> how would it help and what would the objectives be? If we did start the
> list, what recruiting process would we use? How would we best use the
> list to the benefit of all? What part would the -tester list play in
> the quality assurance process? When should the -tester group be
> engaged? Should the -tester group be responsible for determining
> "releasability" status? Am I totally off-base?
>
> On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 19:21, Chris Lyttle wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 12:49, Kevin Benton wrote:
> > > How about posting the changes (1.8.1 vs 1.8.2) here so we all know what
> > > to look for before giving our thumbs up or down?
> > >
> > > Kevin Benton
> > >
> > > On Tue, 2003-03-04 at 12:56, James A. Treacy wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Mon, Mar 03, 2003 at 09:29:03PM -0800, Chris Lyttle wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > I've put a release candidate in
> > > > > http://www.gnucash.org/pub/gnucash/sources/unstable/release-candidate/gnucash-1.8.1.5.tar.gz
> > > > >
> > > > > Packagers please try it out and feedback any problems. If this goes well
> > > > > I'll release a tarball friday for you to package against for a sunday
> > > > > release of 1.8.2.
> > > >
> > > > Compiled and ran on Debian unstable on the first try.
> > >
> >
> > This is a candidate for packagers to test for the sunday release, not a
> > general release. This is why there is no changelog posted. If you want
> > to package for a specific distro/platform release then you should know
> > enough about building from source to find the changelog as part of your
> > process. The general release sunday will have details of the changes.
> >
> > Chris
>
> --
> Kevin Benton <kevinb at bentonfam.org>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-devel mailing list
> gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
--
Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH
warlord at MIT.EDU PGP key available
More information about the gnucash-devel
mailing list