Better educating about what Alpha, Beta, Release means

[Adam Williamson]

On 2012-09-15 10:47, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> I am seeing a LOT of confusion about what Alpha, Beta and Release
> levels. Several people saw the world GOLD and thought that it meant
> this was the final release.. other people saw Alpha Release Candidate
> and got the same impression. Some of this may be user education and
> some of this is our naming conventions. I don't know how to deal with
> the naming conventions so leave that bikeshed for someone else to
> paint.

I agree the current conventions could be improved. We really should get 
around to this between 18 and 19. We have various proposals lying around 
in the list archives for changing the naming of RCs and TCs, and we also 
have proposals for changing the blocker bug aliases (kinda related). I 
also agree we should stop using the word 'gold' for Alphas and Betas 
(for the record, QA does not do so, it comes in with the release 
announcements, which are FPL/program manager stuff.)

> Here is my view of what the release levels mean to me. It probably
> doesn't follow the official guideline but it helps me figure out 
> where
> and what to do with it.

What we have that's 'official' are the objectives listed on the 
criteria pages. I'll paste these under your descriptions, for 
comparison.

> Alpha -- Is not a reliable OS for production or for long term
> development purposes. In the old parlance, will eat kittens and laugh
> when told not to. It is meant for testing only in order to get people
> to find the obvious bugs and such. Use on spare hardware or hardware
> that you have made a complete backup before and then can reinstall
> afterwords. Upgrades from Alpha to any other release may work or they
> may choke and die.

The objectives of the Alpha release are to:

     Publicly release installable media versions of a feature complete 
test release
     Test accepted features of Fedora 18
     Identify as many F18Beta blocker bugs as possible
     Identify as many F18Blocker blocker bugs as possible

> Beta -- is not a reliable OS for production but more reliable than
> Alpha. In the old parlance, it may eat a kitten and then look
> remorseful afterwords. It is meant for testing but should be able to
> be used for day to day usage til the release candidate comes out.
> Upgrades from Beta to Release may work or they may choke and die.
> Upgrades from an old release to Beta should work.

The objectives of the Beta release are to:

     Publicly release installable media versions of a code complete test 
release: Beta is the last widely co-ordinated test release point in any 
given release cycle
     Finish testing Fedora 18 Features
     Identify as many F18Blocker bugs as possible

> Release (or Gamma in my head) -- a reliable OS for production usage
> but may cough up a furball or two. It can be used for day to day 
> usage
> and should be good til the next Release or 2 if you want to take a
> break from testing. Upgrades from Release to Release should work.

The objective of the Final release is to:

     Provide a polished final release suitable for meeting the needs of 
our Target Audience

> Stephen J Smoogen.

> "Years ago my mother used to say to me,... Elwood, you must be oh
> so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I
> recommend pleasant. You may quote me."  —James Stewart as Elwood P. 
> Dowd

I love that quotation, BTW :)
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net