Re: Duration of beta period

On Sun, 2002-02-24 at 10:52, Tom Lane wrote:
> My two cents:
> 
> We do need to make the beta period shorter and more focused; and it's
> core's responsibility to make that happen....

For my 2 cents, I have access to some 40 redhat machines, and two
running solaris. I can easily test snapshots as RPMs on one of the linux
boxes, but in spite of my best efforts I have not typically had the time
to test solaris, nor is it alway easy to free the resources (though I
will continue to try).

As for Linux, however, the RPMs are typically not available before late
beta. I respectfully suggest that closer intergration of the packaging
would allow more testing. If I can grab the snapshot, and run 'rpm -ta'
to build packages, I can do that with alomost arbitrary frequency. Thus
I could start testing much sooner. I know that would help for me, and I
can't help but think it would help for others as well, whether we're
talking about RPMs or any other packaging method.

It's one thing to as people to run a test. It's another thing still to
ask them to run that test when the only readily available test method
bypasses whatever administrative packaing policy is in place on those
machines.

-- 
Karl DeBisschop <kdebisschop@alert.infoplease.com>
The Learning Network / Reference
www.learningnetwork.com / www.infoplease.com