On 09/15/2012 07:20 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
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
So maybe one idea here, that I was thinking about while adding some of
the known bugs to the release announcement....
We always have a section in the release announcement about "what is the
alpha (or beta, etc) release?" - and we basically say, "Oh, it's a
release, and then it gets better." And I wonder if it might make sense
to have something that outlines things like this, either on the wiki, or
copyable from wiki for release announcements, etc:
* What is a Beta/Alpha (or even test candidate, release candidate)?
* Is the Beta Release (or alpha, etc.) for me?
* You should definitely try out the Alpha/Beta if....
With content like....
* What the user should ideally be familiar with, technologically;
running things in a VM, able to copy to a USB key, comfortable with
configuring disk partitions, whatever. Recommending that people trying
TCs, RCs, etc. be familiar with filing bugzilla reports.
* If we recommend installing it on your primary system (ie: We probably
wouldn't recommend installing a test candidate for alpha to your machine
if it is your only machine and you need it every day for your job.)
* If you are a feature owner, you should try out test candidates,
release candidates, and all officially declared release versions, to
determine _____________. if you are an upstream project maintainer,
__________etc. If you care about Fedora, and can follow relatively
simple instructions, you should try out the Beta release.
The key is to present it gently without scaring people off; I don't
think the bar is *that high,* and we certainly don't want to discourage
people from trying it out, but at the same time - if we're in a
situation where commonbugs lists hairy workarounds, it might be useful
to draw a line, or at least relate what the user should be comfortable
with before embarking.
Thoughts?
-r
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