Stability classes (was: Testing test releases: do [ESC d]not update)

Sandy Pond sandy_pond at myrealbox.com
Mon Mar 1 15:48:08 UTC 2004


On Mon, 2004-03-01 at 11:56 +0100, Axel Thimm wrote: 
..snip.. 
> Another question raised is suitability of rawhide for wider testing,
> e.g. a better stability handling. One would have to think about
> offering stability segmentations in rawhide (something like
> rawhide-testing vs rawhide-experimental, new/updated packages entering
> the latter and being moved to the former after some given time). No
> waste of resources other than the initial setup, and could offer
> benefits, as more users would be willing to track the time-delayed and
> somewhat tested rawhide-testing repo.

I think that a lot of the problems that I see from the testers POV on
rawhide stem from;

1.  Not getting a clean update to rawhide from FC1 (not recommended).
2.  The slow default rawhide repo.
3.  The stability of up2date/yum. 
4.  The pure volume of rawhide updates.
5.  The non-syncing of the development mirrors. 

I don't think the main problem is rawhide package stability.  In general
I've found rawhide packages more stable than the original test1 release.

I think that a lot of the problems from a developers POV is duplicate/
bad bug reporting and time management.  More testers doesn't necessary
translate into better testing.

I'd prefer these issues be attacked head-on first.  Unfortunately,
you'll never fix the volume issue.  Sometimes many packages need to be
rebuilt only because of a dependency update, like a gcc update.  And
many times these large rebuilds can affect overlapping packages.  I
really don't see moving a package from one segment to another without a
rebuild as all that common.  Maybe I'm wrong but it seems like stability
segmentation of rawhide would be lead to having another development
channel.  A tanned-hide?  And the big question is does this really hurt
or help the developer?  My thinking is attack the present known problems
head-on first and give some more time for things to sort out.

I don't think we disagree.  I think we both want the developers needs 
put first and foremost so that we get to FC2 gold as fast as possible.  







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