4.9 Beta Phase is approaching: what needs to be done?

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

On 05/03/2012 01:42 PM, Martin Gräßlin wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> with today's soft feature freeze for 4.9 the Beta testing gets closer and
> closer.
>
> I think we need to start preparing the beta phase and start discussing some
> ideas in more detail if we want to change anything for 4.9.
>
> Let me start with one idea: setting up a tester team and train them to
> correctly report bugs through the forums. Users who want to participate are
> added to a special group in bugs.kde.org and get a flag they are allowed to
> set to bugs they report to indicate that it has been set in the beta testing.
>
> Beta testers can use the flag to easily search for bugs reported during beta
> testing and developers can use it to see that the report has a better quality
> than the "normal" bugs.
>
> Cheers
> Martin
>
Hi,

First, sorry for my silence, I was away for a few weeks.

Indeed it's time to get into some action! Gathering a beta testers team 
is indeed what we need to do and the bugzilla flag is a very useful idea.
We need to set some time line for this: beta1 release is 30th May and 
beta2 is June 13th so we could plan a 4 weeks of intense testing target 
(giving dates to people is better in my opinion).

Here is a list of things to do, please add your ideas:
- agree on a timeline
- Dot article to appeal for testers + various social networks 
notifications We can use an Etherpad for the article.
   when should the article be published?
- when can we train the testers? will we do some IRC training? I think 
the emphasis should go on the steps to reproduce the bug. What existing 
material do we have to start with in the forums?
- contact distributions to see which ones will package the betas and set 
up a wiki page explaining how to install the beta (probably the hardest 
step for new testers)

Anne-Marie