Maemo QA process

2010/7/22 Ville M. Vainio <vivainio@gmail.com>:
> How about a system where developers could convince other developers to
> test drive their application by voting on theirs? I.e. being able to
> give a conditional vote that is "realized" only after the receiver
> votes up/down on your application?

Wouldn't this slow down the whole process even more? Instead of
getting one vote right away, you have to wait for the "return vote" to
be completed, and only then the vote gets counted. A "download
assistant" app (as discussed earlier in this thread) sounds more
useful to me than complicating the QA process. Add some incentive
(i.e. a monthly posting of the "Top 10 Testers" to maemo-community, so
testers get a feeling of their importance) and make the UI of the
testing app really easy to use ("What's new" section, single sign on,
"Latest votes", "Newest uploads", filter out already-tested apps, show
new versions of apps for which the user has voted on at least one
older version before, ...), and I think more users will test apps on
their devices. Right now, it's very diffcult to "browse around" and
find apps to test (well, http://maemo.org/packages/ works kind-of, but
screenshots and better descriptions would help the tester decide
whether or not to spend time downloading and testing the app).

Another idea would be to add a new section to MWKN (mwkn.net) called
"Testing Spotlight" where three apps in Testing are described and
promoted, and readers are asked to at least test these three apps
during the week - this should make it possible to have three apps get
enough votes during one week. Visibility and promotion of the apps are
the problems, I think (searching for apps is tedious, so nobody does
it) - the conditional vote idea sounds like a technical solution
(enforced policy, added restrictions) to a social problem (non-popular
apps don't get enough exposure and consequently testers).

HTH.
Thomas

Hi all,

do you think that the possibility to vote (UP/DOWN) applications and
send feedback directly from N900 could help the process? It's just an
idea eh...

Another feature I'd like to see on Application Manager is the
possibility to know if an application I see comes from maemo-extras,
extras-testing or extras-devel. There's no way to know it at the
moment.
This information should be clearly visible with a color for example:
green for extras, orange for testing and red for devel.

There should be the possibility ti configure username/password of
maemo.org directly in N900 settings, so the user can automatically
send feedback without having to login.

Is this too much effort?

Please let me know what you think about.

--
Andrea Grandi
email: a.grandi [AT] gmail [DOT] com
website: http://www.andreagrandi.it
PGP Key: http://www.andreagrandi.it/pgp_key.asc

On Thursday 22 July 2010 00:19:20 Felipe Crochik wrote:
> I added a message to the "download assistant" thread but never received a
> reply. http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=717824&postcount=17
>
> Maybe someone knows the maintainer or what is behind the scenes and can
> find out if it is a viable solution or not.

AFAIK that effort is done by Daniel Wilms on a community basis. I wanted to
chip in to that project myself, but am severy limited on time :(

Regards,
Attila

On Thu, Jul 22, 2010 at 2:02 PM, Thomas Perl <th.perl@gmail.com> wrote:

> Wouldn't this slow down the whole process even more? Instead of
> getting one vote right away, you have to wait for the "return vote" to
> be completed, and only then the vote gets counted. A "download

People could still give unconditinal votes (they would be passed
around by people that don't need votes, i.e. have no apps). It would
only slow down the process for those that are not willing to test
other applications.

I'm certainly in favor of improving the testing experience on all
fronts (and in fact suggested an app for this purpose months ago, so
I'm not expecting anyone to jump in and do one now). However, what I'm
proposing here is a direct incentive for developers to start helping
each other.


> enough votes during one week. Visibility and promotion of the apps are
> the problems, I think (searching for apps is tedious, so nobody does
> it) - the conditional vote idea sounds like a technical solution
> (enforced policy, added restrictions) to a social problem (non-popular
> apps don't get enough exposure and consequently testers).

Technical solution is the best solution for a social problem ;-). It
cuts through the bullshit, to parahprase an 80's movie.

Other solutions would appear to require continuing effort from several
parties (all of whom are probably overloaded).

However, here are some "softer" solutions:

- Put a sticky post at "applications" forum on TMO, linking to the vote page
- Don't fret too much about QA checklist (
http://wiki.maemo.org/Extras-testing/QA_Checklist ):
- Not everybody should check for optification, it should be automatic
- Doesn't missing bugtracker link prevent promotion to e-t anyway?

--
Ville M. Vainio @@ Forum Nokia

I assume there is a big "part" of the solution that depends on the "data
feeds" being available on the server.

Does anybody know if the "server" can provide the same feeds for the
extras-testing (and optionally devel) that it does for extras? If yes, the
application probably won't require many changes. If no, we need someone with
access to the "server" to evaluate... anybody?

Felipe

-----Original Message-----
From: Attila Csipa [mailto:maemo@csipa.in.rs]
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 7:41 AM
To: Felipe Crochik
Cc: maemo-developers@maemo.org
Subject: Re: Maemo QA process

On Thursday 22 July 2010 00:19:20 Felipe Crochik wrote:
> I added a message to the "download assistant" thread but never received a
> reply. http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=717824&postcount=17
>
> Maybe someone knows the maintainer or what is behind the scenes and can
> find out if it is a viable solution or not.

AFAIK that effort is done by Daniel Wilms on a community basis. I wanted to
chip in to that project myself, but am severy limited on time :(

Regards,
Attila

> I assume there is a big "part" of the solution that depends on the "data
> feeds" being available on the server.

We have an OCS api for packages. In this api you can list from any
repository in the packages interface. Appdownloader can easily be adapted
to use different urls when in testing mode for instance.

>
> Does anybody know if the "server" can provide the same feeds for the
> extras-testing (and optionally devel) that it does for extras? If yes, the
> application probably won't require many changes. If no, we need someone
> with access to the "server" to evaluate... anybody?

The voting part is the only thing that is still missing in terms of
available api, but this should be something that can be added with some
work.


>
> Felipe
>

--
Niels Breet
maemo.org webmaster

Hi,

Personnaly i didn't care anymore about extras.
If people need to use my apps i just ask them to use my repository. No
QA Hassle ... :)

And if someone want to package it to maemo extras repo he can ... but
in three month this didn't happen.

Best regards,

2010/7/21 Roman Morawek <lists@morawek.at>:
> Hello,
>
> I like to share my thoughts on the QA strategy of Maemo.
>
> I am the owner of an N900 program and promoted my package to
> extras-testing ca. 2 months ago. Right now there are only 2 votes on it.
> I wonder how many more months it will take until 10 persons vote for it
> such that I can promote it to extras (given that the votes are positive).
>
> I already have a bunch of improvements ready since several weeks.
> However, I do not dare to upload them because my package will start the
> evaluation sequence then again from scratch. I think this is a big
> disadvantage for the community, because the tool could already be much
> better. Actually, I think in the early lifetime of a SW project there
> will probably be a release every few months, which could permanently
> block the tool's promotion to extras.
>
> I personally see my program as very useful - well, otherwise I wouldn't
> have spent the time for development. I assume that just nobody is aware
> of it, since everybody just looks at the available programs in extras.
> At least this is what I did to search for useful tools.
>
> >From my perspective, the current QA process should be reconsidered.
> Maybe an automatic promotion after 4 weeks would make sense, given its
> actual package karma is positive?
>
> Best regards,
> Roman
>
> P.S.: You are welcome to evaluate and vote on my package:
> http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/babyphone/0.1-2/
>



--
Benoît HERVIER, Khertan Software - http://khertan.net/