Dear Debian team,
I'm very pleased to be involved in the Debian project. Thank you for
having me. Let me introduce myself. I'm Martin, I am a developer based
in Manchester in the UK and I've recently decided to dive head first
into the wonderful world of FOSS. I have been in the Microsoft ecosystem
for the best part of two decades and only ever dabbled in Linux and
Debian a little bit during that time. I recently took part in the Debian
12.1 ISO release event and I had fun, learned a lot of things and met
some interesting people (including the former DPL Sledge). I had some
suggestions based on my experience that I would like to share with you.
1) When I was conducting testing of Debian 12.1, I had an idea of
writing a "Testing Wizard" Bash/Perl/Python script to help with the
testing process. A simple shell script that will test the ISO against a
predefined set of tests and gather pertinent information (such as
hardware information for the team). The tester would run the script, all
the automatic code would execute (such as gathering hardware
information, ISO name, boot time, etc) then the wizard would guide the
tester through a series of required tests and then possibly some random
ones thrown in (in order to increase chances of catching bugs before
publishing). I'd be interested to hear other people's opinions on it and
possibly we could have a session to discuss it in a bit more detail if
you're interested. If I'm overthinking it or over egging the pudding
here, I am also interested to hear your feedback there too. :-)
2) Recognition of testers. Although the small group over on #debian-cd
on OFTC were thankful for everyone's contributions including my own, it
would be really great for new testers like myself to have some kind of
formal project recognition. It may seem like a small thing but it makes
a huge difference to me personally. There are several ways of
recognising the testers...some easy some not so easy. Firstly, when
publishing the release notes, naming the testers (by their chosen names)
that helped test the images before publication would be a nice way to
recognise us. Also, as cheesy as this may seem or sound, awarding a
certificate to recognise that that person has participated in the Debian
release testing process. Doesn't have to be printed of course, it could
be designed in Gimp or whathaveyou. I have mocked a design which you can
view here - > https://justpaste.it/de4hd (NB: this is a heads up. This
link is SFW...if you happen to be in the office right now).
3) Overhaul of the wiki testing process. Rattus proposed some
overhauling of the ISO testing situation with the wiki. I am happy to
work on that with you Rattus if you get time and we have something where
we don't need to wait for the wiki to be released from another user.
Although, I'm also happy to keep it as is if that's what the community
wants. If it's a nod to times of old, I'm all for that too. I found the
process quaint and reminded me of the old days of locking Excel
workbooks. :D
4) Automation. I read a thread on this mailing list recently talking
about openQA and whilst I am not opposed to automatic testing by
machines, I would insist that the manual testers are still retained as
relying solely on machines for QA can be problematic (machines are not
perfect just like humans). Not only that, the testers over on #debian-cd
is a community and having full automation would mean that community no
longer meets regularly to test stuff...and thus the community disperses
and fades away over time. FOSS to me is all about community so I would
hope that openQA works alongside the ISO testers rather than replace us.
This is slightly off-topic but AI is doing a lot of damage to corporate
tech and I hope that the FOSS projects don't fall victim to it too.
Thanks for reading this, if you want to chat, I'm in various channels on
Libera and OFTC on IRC or you can respond to this mail. :)
Thanks and regards,
Martin McCarthy.
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Remember when you were young? You shone like the sun.
Breathe, breathe in the air...don't be afraid to care.
Leave, but don't leave me...look around, choose your own ground.
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