FESCo wants to ban direct stable pushes in Bodhi (urgent call for feedback)

[Paul W. Frields]

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 04:22:37PM +0100, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Jaroslav Reznik wrote:
> > Maybe some package rating included in PackageKit would be nice - for
> > stable packages it's indicator that this package is worth to install, for
> > testing package it would mean it's working (but again - who's going to
> > rate it in pkgkit once installed).
> 
> That won't solve the problem that people aren't using updates-testing in the 
> first place. We can't force them to.

I had a fair (i.e. non-zero) response to my call for testing this
package:
https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F12/FEDORA-2010-0916

How'd it happen?  I commented directly in the Bugzilla bugs with the
link and told the subscribers to the bugs that the package would not
be issued until some of them tested it and posted feedback to tell me
their bugs were fixed.

That's a lot harder to do if you maintain hundreds of packages, sure.
So we ought to have some more visible and helpful automations:

* A notification mechanism for people who have a package installed
  that has known bugs.  The notification mechanism should "pleasantly
  coerce" the user to test, but letting them know we can't promise it
  will work.  If it doesn't, our tools should be able to undo that
  transaction gracefully -- start from current updates, try test, if
  failing 'yum history undo' back to current update.

* The Bugzilla comments that Bodhi sends probably need some work.
  They're currently very complete and factual but they don't include
  any information for the less experienced users who are often filing
  bugs.  Those people have reached out to contribute something, they
  want to continue that engagement (i.e. get a fix), and we could have
  a mutually positive exchange with them.  By not giving them clear
  information we're putting that opportunity at risk.


-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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