promotion to extras

Hi,

I'm afraid that extras is dying due to a lack of interest in testing
packages.

Last month, I uploaded some Woodchuck-related packages to
extras-devel. I asked on #maemo a few times for people to test my
packages. I asked on this mailing list. And, I asked on
talk.maemo.org. In the end, most of the testers were people who I
know personally and asked to do me a favor and vote for my package. I
doubt that they actually tested it. This is a waste of time: it
doesn't improve the quality of packages and my time could be better
spent working on my package.

There is one person who appears to test packages: Harald Schmidt. He
has been designated a tester and appears to periodically check
extras-testing for new packages.

Given this, I propose that we use the following criteria for promoting
to extras:

- 10 days incubation (unchanged)
- maintainer + 1 designated "testers" (e.g., Harald Schmidt) thumbs up
or maintainer + 3 non-testers

Thoughts?

Neal

Hi,

I propose that since most devs are asking others to vote for them
we remove the whole testing requirement and make promoting to extras-testing something that's at the will of the developer.

--
Sent from my Nokia N950
Regards,
Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh


On 12/12/11 05:47 PM Neal H. Walfield wrote:

Hi,

I'm afraid that extras is dying due to a lack of interest in testing
packages.

Last month, I uploaded some Woodchuck-related packages to
extras-devel. I asked on #maemo a few times for people to test my
packages. I asked on this mailing list. And, I asked on
talk.maemo.org. In the end, most of the testers were people who I
know personally and asked to do me a favor and vote for my package. I
doubt that they actually tested it. This is a waste of time: it
doesn't improve the quality of packages and my time could be better
spent working on my package.

There is one person who appears to test packages: Harald Schmidt. He
has been designated a tester and appears to periodically check
extras-testing for new packages.

Given this, I propose that we use the following criteria for promoting
to extras:

- 10 days incubation (unchanged)
- maintainer + 1 designated "testers" (e.g., Harald Schmidt) thumbs up
or maintainer + 3 non-testers

Thoughts?

Neal

Hi Neal,

Thank you for taking the time to post this and to make a proposal. In my
opinion, the testing of packages is an essential function of the community
and we should come up with a solution that accounts for the lesser volume
of active participants in maemo these days.

FWIW, the council (of which I am a member) suggested the idea of a limited
number of "supertesters" to Nemein awhile ago. The approval of a single
supertester would, in the absence of any disapproval, be sufficient for
promotion. IMHO, there should be an open call for individuals to volunteer
as supertesters but first crowdsource the qualifications so that we have an
objective measure by which to select from the volunteers.

Rob Bauer (SD69)

On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Neal H. Walfield <neal@walfield.org>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm afraid that extras is dying due to a lack of interest in testing
> packages.
>
> Last month, I uploaded some Woodchuck-related packages to
> extras-devel. I asked on #maemo a few times for people to test my
> packages. I asked on this mailing list. And, I asked on
> talk.maemo.org. In the end, most of the testers were people who I
> know personally and asked to do me a favor and vote for my package. I
> doubt that they actually tested it. This is a waste of time: it
> doesn't improve the quality of packages and my time could be better
> spent working on my package.
>
> There is one person who appears to test packages: Harald Schmidt. He
> has been designated a tester and appears to periodically check
> extras-testing for new packages.
>
> Given this, I propose that we use the following criteria for promoting
> to extras:
>
> - 10 days incubation (unchanged)
> - maintainer + 1 designated "testers" (e.g., Harald Schmidt) thumbs up
> or maintainer + 3 non-testers
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Neal
>
>

On 12 December 2011 17:44, robert bauer <nybauer@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW, the council (of which I am a member) suggested the idea of a limited
> number of "supertesters" to Nemein awhile ago.  The approval of a single
> supertester would, in the absence of any disapproval, be sufficient for
> promotion.  IMHO, there should be an open call for individuals to volunteer
> as supertesters but first crowdsource the qualifications so that we have an
> objective measure by which to select from the volunteers.

There are already "supertesters", of course. After 20 days quarantine,
a net of 3 supertester votes is enough to carry a package through. The
scope of supertesters, and the needed number of votes, may need to be
revisited.

Cheers,

Andrew

--
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org  |  http://www.bleb.org/

You should also solve the problem of those applications that are ready to be promoted, but the maintainer is no longer "alive".
For example, after one month of the release, the promotion may become automatic, or we should enable Supertester to do this.

BR

Marco


-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: maemo-developers-bounces@maemo.org [mailto:maemo-developers-bounces@maemo.org] Per conto di Andrew Flegg
Inviato: lunedì 12 dicembre 2011 18:51
A: robert bauer
Cc: maemo-developers
Oggetto: Re: promotion to extras

On 12 December 2011 17:44, robert bauer <nybauer@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> FWIW, the council (of which I am a member) suggested the idea of a
> limited number of "supertesters" to Nemein awhile ago. The approval
> of a single supertester would, in the absence of any disapproval, be
> sufficient for promotion. IMHO, there should be an open call for
> individuals to volunteer as supertesters but first crowdsource the
> qualifications so that we have an objective measure by which to select from the volunteers.

There are already "supertesters", of course. After 20 days quarantine, a net of 3 supertester votes is enough to carry a package through. The scope of supertesters, and the needed number of votes, may need to be revisited.

Cheers,

Andrew

--
Andrew Flegg -- mailto:andrew@bleb.org | http://www.bleb.org/

On 12/12/2011 08:19 PM, emme750@gmail.com wrote:
> You should also solve the problem of those applications that are ready to be promoted, but the maintainer is no longer "alive".
> For example, after one month of the release, the promotion may become automatic, or we should enable Supertester to do this.
>

This have been talked about, but stopped at a question - do you really
want orphaned packages published in Extras ? If a problem surfaces or a
bug gets reported, there is nobody to take care of it, and removal can
get really tricky (who gets final say as how broken it has to be to ask
Niels to remove it, what if there are other packages depending on the
orphaned one, etc).


Best regards,
Attila Csipa

Hi,

the objection is correct, but:
1) in testing there are packages that have more than 15 positive feedback and there are in testing for months. To my humble opinion, they are to be considered reliable as those in extras.
2) I am convinced that there are orphaned packages in extras which may fall into the same problem than testing.

So, in my opinion, if Supertester have given the green light to these applications, I think it's fair that they be promoted in extras.

BR

Marco


-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Attila Csipa [mailto:maemo@csipa.in.rs]
Inviato: lunedì 12 dicembre 2011 20:01
A: emme750@gmail.com
Cc: 'Andrew Flegg'; 'maemo-developers'
Oggetto: Re: R: promotion to extras

On 12/12/2011 08:19 PM, emme750@gmail.com wrote:
> You should also solve the problem of those applications that are ready to be promoted, but the maintainer is no longer "alive".
> For example, after one month of the release, the promotion may become automatic, or we should enable Supertester to do this.
>

This have been talked about, but stopped at a question - do you really want orphaned packages published in Extras ? If a problem surfaces or a bug gets reported, there is nobody to take care of it, and removal can get really tricky (who gets final say as how broken it has to be to ask Niels to remove it, what if there are other packages depending on the orphaned one, etc).


Best regards,
Attila Csipa

emme750@gmail.com wrote:
> So, in my opinion, if Supertester have given the green light to these applications, I think it's fair that they be promoted in extras.

IMHO, the person doing the promoting should become the maintainer. If
not that person, then certainly one of the users of the package wants to
become the maintainer.

Having maintainer-less packages promoted is irresponsible.

IRT the original e-mail, I'm all for dramatically lowering the promotion
requirements to a bare minimum. Maemo(MeeGo) is dead. People need to
accept it.

IMHO, the person doing the promoting should become the maintainer. If not
that person, then certainly one of the users of the package wants to become
the maintainer.

A good idea!


-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: maemo-developers-bounces@maemo.org
[mailto:maemo-developers-bounces@maemo.org] Per conto di Michael Cronenworth
Inviato: lunedì 12 dicembre 2011 20:25
A: maemo-developers@maemo.org
Oggetto: Re: R: R: promotion to extras

emme750@gmail.com wrote:
> So, in my opinion, if Supertester have given the green light to these
applications, I think it's fair that they be promoted in extras.

IMHO, the person doing the promoting should become the maintainer. If not
that person, then certainly one of the users of the package wants to become
the maintainer.

Having maintainer-less packages promoted is irresponsible.

IRT the original e-mail, I'm all for dramatically lowering the promotion
requirements to a bare minimum. Maemo(MeeGo) is dead. People need to accept
it.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. I'm happy to learn that there is
already infrastructure for differentiating super-testers from normal
tesers. I think promoting orphaned packages is a different discussion
and I think this should be decided seperately.

My new proposal is:

- quarantine for 10 days, promote after: 1 tester + 1 super-tester approve
- quarantine for 10 days, promote after: 3 testers approve

Thanks,

Neal