Hi, Every now and then a message along those lines comes up. I've seen it in all the open sources projects I've contributed to, and (what does that say? I have too much free time? ;)) these are many.
I will quote a response, not written by me, that I think is a perfect way to look at the process. I hope Will won't mind being quoted ;) >>From: "Milt Epstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 10:11 AM >> I mean, I understand (and sympathize with what you're saying), but I >> also understand the position of those who want to wait until there's >> "release"-quality code available. I mean, what will the typical >> manager say after the production system breaks down and you tell them >> that you went with "beta"-quality code instead of "release"-quality >> code. > >It's all a matter of expectations. I find that most people want the system >to work and aren't really caught up on release numbers and labels. > >Now, through probably painful experience, people have lower expectations of >1.0 code, "Beta" code, etc. They pretty much expect it to fail in some, >perhaps critical, way. They may use the label as an indicator whether the >code is worth testing. > >But the real problem is not necessarily whether its Beta or Release >quality, it is the testing facilities available to the consumers. > >If you had a deployed application and a solid, thorough feature and load >test suite of your application, then it shouldn't matter what the back end >code is labeled. If your test is complete and robust enough and thus >confirms that your application will behave as designed, then Release or >Beta are irrelevant. > >The dark side of this is that folks will say "Well, gee I don't have to >'test' release code, it's already tested!". > >To wit everybody falls over on the floor in hysterics. > >The acceptance process for the software should be the same whether Beta or >Release. No matter how thorough the testing by the folks developing the >application, no doubt they have NOT tested their software on YOUR >application with YOUR load conditions on YOUR hardware. > >And it should go without saying that this applies to any major >infrastructure component in your application, not just Tomcat. Don't just >blindly upgrade your system to Solaris 9, Oracle 9i and new Firewall >software and then throw the application live because it's all "release >quality" software. > >There are disclaimers in those licenses for a reason. Caveat Emptor and all >that. > >Regards, > >Will Hartung >([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Yoav Shapira Millennium ChemInformatics >-----Original Message----- >From: Martin Algesten [mailto:puckman@;taglab.com] >Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 6:19 AM >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: production quality? > >Hi all, > >Just some thoughts. > >I've been using the 3.3.1 release for quite some time in a >mod_jk/apache/linux kind of setup and all was fine. Though a couple of >weeks ago I felt a need to start looking at new versions of all my >API's/products in order to make sure I stay on top of things and don't >end up with unsupported versions. > >What do we mean with production quality? >According to the Tomcat project home page, 4.1.12 is a production >quality release, however using it in real life makes me question the >usefulness of such status. I've been monitoring this list and also tried >to contribute by discussing/submitting patches for the bugs I've >encountered. I don't have an issue with how long it takes to resolve >these issues, after all we are all doing this for fun (more or less ;) >). However I do think we have a responsibility in what signals we're >sending regarding how useful a release really is. The current 4.1.12 >release have some quite nasty issues that in some production setups >makes it more or less useless. In my opinion the most nasty issues are >those that directly breaks internet standards and the core API (10373, >13846, 13040). > >What about quality control? >Well, the bugzilla do allow for a Severity, Priority classification. >Perhaps we should start classifying bugs more actively using these >switches. This could be combined with a policy that we don't make a >release before certain levels of issues are all resolved? I also get a >feeling that we as developers are somewhat in the wrong position to >label things as "production quality". The watchdog tests are all very >well, but can never replace real life scenarios. Perhaps we need a new >label such as release candidate? Perhaps we should be more in the spirit >of other open source projects, (OpenSSL and Mozilla comes to mind), >where the release cycle seems to more involve end users and have a more >cautious labelling of releases. > >This is not intended as criticism of anyone. After all Tomcat is a >fantastic project with fantastic people contributing. Good work all! > >Martin > > >-- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:tomcat-dev- >[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >For additional commands, e-mail: <mailto:tomcat-dev- >[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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