Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Horst H. von Brand wrote: [...] > >> You probably can't match RHEL's QA for free, but testing - and not > >> shipping things that don't pass - is the only way things can get > >> better. > > Pray tell us, exactly how do we /do/ that? I think we all agree that > > that is the ideal, but I strongly believe it is unatainable in pratice. > The big problem for me is that it's a package deal. I wouldn't mind > beta testing a few apps at a time on my working system with a stable > OS and libraries, but to run them you also have to take an > experimental kernel and device drivers. And my history with those on > fedora is that I waste too much time getting the hardware to work with > new versions. Maybe that's changed... If you had a way to separate > the apps from the OS, you might find people more willing to test the > parts that interested them. Many problems are integration problems, i.e., package version foo doesn't work with library version bar. It also happens that to run the very latest-and-greatest version of the package you need experimental(ish) versions of other stuff. > >> I've heard the term used as in "an instrument's tuning is 'good > >> enough' for folk music" or "an approximation is 'good enough' for > >> government work". What's 'good enough' for an operating system? > > Works mostly. Doesn't crash too often. Doesn't destroy valuable data > > except under extremely unlikely circumstances. > Kernels that don't boot on machines where the last version worked Keep the next-to-last one around just in case. Have a LiveCD of the lastest stable/beta at hand for the case it gets too screwed up. Yes, it's a nuisance. > or > lose the ability to access devices like firewire drives isn't 'mostly' > enough for me. Ditto. > > This is engineering, not mathematics. And even in mathematics there have > > been mistakes... > But would you want to test a plane where the engineers said it was > probably good enough and didn't crash too often? So you have never heard of plane crashes? Or other failures? In the end, as 100% perfect is not realistically doable, you have to make do with "good enough", and what /that/ means depends on the circumstances: The kernel of a game console (a crash means a minor inconvenience or at most a lost game) has /very/ different safety/security requirements than software controlling a radiation therapy aparatus (which could very well be lethal to the patient). -- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 2654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 2654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile 2340000 Fax: +56 32 2797513 -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
