Everyone,


In an effort to make patch submission and quality assurance easier on everyone for this next release cycle, I've got some proposals to run by you all.

1.  In Bugzilla, move the Koha Bugs List from being the Default QA Contact to a Global Watcher.  This has two advantages:
     1. It frees up the QA Contact field for use by the QA Team
     2. It guarantees that the Bugs List always gets included on the changes; with the current set up, someone could in theory remove the Bugs List as QA contact, preventing the list from getting updates.

2.  To reduce email traffic, I propose we stop sending SIGNED OFF patches to the patches list.  We've got Bugzilla lists (which can be connected to RSS and daily croned emails) which will inform the QA team on what patches are ready for QA.  I did not use the patches list much this last release cycle to direct my QA work; it was all based of the Bugzilla statuses

2a.  Ideally, I'd like to set up Bugzilla to automatically send the patches to the listserv for us, or to be able to accept patches sent to the listserv as attachments.  This is going to take some custom coding, so it's probably not practical for right now.

3.  Now that I'm not the only QA person for the release cycle, I'd like to formalize our rules about making sure that any submitted patch doesn't get processed solely by one company.  I felt uncomfortable every time I passed a patch both written and signed off by ByWater teammates, because while I was sure it was good code, I knew I had a bias (often times, the code was fixing an issue one of our partners had reported).  My strategy for 3.6 was to acknowledge the bias, and ask if anyone had any objections.  With 3.8, I can pass anything that I write, or that is written/signed-off by ByWater alone, to Marcel or Jonathan for QA testing.

Here're the rules I'd like to see in place:
  1. A patch may not be written and signed off by the same person (existing rule)
  2. The QA team consists of the Release Manager, the Quality Assurance Manager, and the Quality Assurance Assistants.  This team has the right to move a patch through QA.
  3. The QAM delegates the QA work between himself and the QAAs, in accordance with the rules.
  4. A patch may not be written and QA'ed by the same person
  5. A patch may not be written, signed off and QA'ed by any group of people in the same institution
  6. A patch MAY be signed off and QA'ed by the same member of the QA team, but the RM may challenge this if he feels the patch needs more testing.  Rule 5 still applies in this case.

Comments?  Ideas?  Counter-proposals?


-Ian

--
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls@bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal