crazy thought about how to ease QA testing

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net>:

> On Thu, Feb 09, 2006 at 04:39:08PM -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
>> So I'm kicking around this idea to help w/ QA testing.  What if Fedora
>> Legacy provided very base images of the releases we support for use with
>> vmplayer?  Vmplayer is free, and from the base image a QA tester could
>> update to the package we need QA on, use the package in various ways,
>> and report how it worked out.   No need to have a full system of that
>> release, no bad effects to your running system, just a nice test
>> environment to run a few smoke tests on it.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>
> Technically this is a very good idea, but there may be clashes between
> "Fedora's goals" as a strict open source solution. It could be food
> for discussions similar to "kernel uses propriatary version control
> system".

I don't think so, as we would not be either distributing or requiring
any non-open solution.  We're just making it easier for people who
are using a VM system, open or not, to do QA.

There are open VM projects also, so we could always try that route,
if they check out.

> Maybe an unofficial HOWTO on how to setup a vmware host is the best?

Yes. The only thing we need to distribute is an OS to run in it, not
the actual VM software.  Instructions on using it with various VM
products would be most useful.

> No official endorsement of non open source parts, and testers still
> have a receipe on how to do their QA on virtual machines.

Yes, sounds good.

My understanding of Jesse's e-mail was we were providing just an image, not
a "virtual machine image".  If I'm wrong, then I would understand your
concern.  I guess maybe Jesse can clarify what he meant by "image".

> --
> Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!