[csw-maintainers] testing team for packages

[Philip Brown]

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 01:11:55AM +0100, Peter Bonivart wrote:
>...
> Not only will maintainers know better what is and is not
> happening with their packages, I think it will encourage testing as
> well.

a side note: maintainers already tend to "know what is happening" with
their packages already. Often within a few hours; usually within a day.

As far as testing goes:
Across-the-board testing doesnt happen because people write a fancy interface. 
Testing happens only when people *commit* to spending a WHOOLE bunch of
their own time to do so.

I think it makes sense that when, and IF, people step up to doing testing,
that *those* people should get to design the interface they are going to
use.

Contrariwise, if no-one is willing to commit to doing testing, it makes no
sense to spend a bunch of time designing an interface that no-one is going
to use.
If someone does decide to volunteer to test in the future, they may well
toss it out the window and write their own. So it's waste of time and
effort to write one now, before someone commits to doing testing.

I would LOVE for us to have an official testing team, to test every package
before release.
[something which completely torpedoes any idea of "fully automated release"
  out the door, btw]

As a frame of reference, I spend somewhere between 1-5 hours a week, EVERY
WEEK, just looking at, and releasing packages.

Testing, is going to take probably more time than that.
Anyone want to commit to that kind of time, every week?