[maemo-developers] QA from extras-devel to extras-testing

[From: Niels Breet]

> Niels,
>
>
> that sounds like a sage proposal to the initial uploading, what however
> happens when a package has gone through all this and been uploaded and
> "active" for a while with no real problems.
>
>
> If after a period of time reports start to come in of problems, would it
> be wise to put in place mechanisms to temporarily demote an application
> back to -testing to prevent further problems for users?
>

There are several potential solutions, but they depend on the severity of
the bug and the impact. It also depends on how far we want to go:

- I think we should always need to see if the developer can provide a fix
first. This fix can then be deployed with priority and the user gets an
automatic update notification from AM.

- Second option would be to remove the package from the repository

- Third option (slightly controversial) would be provide a dummy upgrade
package.

- Fourth option would be to have a maemo-community-qa meta package in the
device by default. This package would be signed by us and we would be able
to provide SSU-like updates with this. This meta package would then
conflict with the 'evil' package and force removal of the package.

The fourth option can be some sort of last resort when there is a very
serious issue with the package. So serious in fact, that we need to either
warn the user or ask if we should remove the package.

These ideas are open for discussion of course ;)

>
> It happens with online applications quite often (and through no fault of
> the developer might I add), a required service changes their layout or
> data format so the app becomes unusable but the developer cannot rectify
> the solution immediately.

Yes, the application stops working then, but most of the time it is not
very critical. The application stops working, but it doesn't kill the
device. When you depend on external services, you can always expect that
they will stop working at some point.

The whole point of our current QA proposal is to prevent simple issues
from happening, not to make every application perfect and bug free.

>
> gary
>

--
Niels Breet
maemo.org webmaster