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

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

On 05/06/2012 10:19 PM, David Edmundson wrote:
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Anne-Marie Mahfouf
> <annemarie.mahfouf at free.fr>  wrote:
>> >  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.
> Is this something that we need to contact sys-admins to do?
I think so. I'll dig into that. Assigned to Anne-Marie.
>
>>> >>
>>> >>  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.
> According to notes.kde.org (the new etherpad site) we need to contact
> a sys-admin to request a place for our notes.
> I can do that, if no-one else has.
That would be good thanks! Assigned to David.
>> >    when should the article be published?
> Slightly before the 30th of May (when the first beta rolls out)
> We want to be announced and ready before 4.9 beta comes out, but not
> have lots of hype too early as otherwise everyone will lose interest
> before the beta is released.
> I'd say the 29th is ideal, then we can be blogging on planetKDE at any
> point after that to remind people.
>
>> >  - 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?
> We should start a guide "Bugzilla for testers" (as opposed to
> developers). This will be be useful forever, and I'm sure there's a
> lot of content out there already.
>
> Useful existing information/guides that we should link to/copy bits from:
>
>   http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Debugging/How_to_create_useful_crash_reports
>   https://wiki.kubuntu.org/Kubuntu/Bugs/Reporting  (has some Kubuntu
> specific parts, but the topic "how to write good reports" is still
> valid)
>   http://aseigo.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/bugskdeorg.html
>   http://itscommonsensestupid.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/tips-to-write-good-bug-report.html
>
Who would like to start this?

>> >  - 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)
>> >
I'll contact the distributions. Assigned to Anne-Marie
> Do we have a more advanced plan on testing? Should we have a checklist
> of "apps to check"?
My proposal was to have 2 sorts of beta testing:
- informal testing where testers install the beta and use it as they 
wish (they would probably use mostly apps they normally use) which was 
what was done in previous releases
- specific apps to test in a more thorough way (going through all the 
GUI elements, trying all the settings,...). This would need a list of 
proposed apps. Edu apps could be included there as I know devels are 
quite respondent to bugs. I was also thinking about common applets. Not 
apps like KMail or Konqueror which are too big. Focus on new 
apps/applets for this release. KCMs also are good candidates. So it's 
already quite a list. Are we having some IRC based "bug squishing days" 
if so do we want to propose some dates for that.I think we need to have 
people on IRC in #kde-quality and #kde-bugs on May 29th, 30th and maybe 
we can set the next week-end as formal "bug week-end" (that would be 2 
and 3rd June)

We can also set up some "awards" for beta testers if the eV has some 
goodies for us to dispatch. I'll ask them of they have t-shirts and mugs 
or so. Then we can decide if we go for this and how.

Anne-Marie