quality@glassfish.java.net

Re: Request for comments : FishCAT, the way forward

From: Richard Kolb <rjdkolb_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:32:19 +0200

Hi Kristian

On 24 June 2010 09:11, Kristian Rink <rink_at_planconnect.de> wrote:

>
> Am Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:02:26 +0200
> schrieb Richard Kolb <rjdkolb_at_dev.java.net>:
>
> > Yes, I do understand and I think you make some good points.
> > And let's go into more detail ; perhaps we/you can write an official
> > proposal to the powers that be.
> > If we can prove return on investment , we have a winner I think.
>
> Indeed, and this will be rather difficult in my opinion. And,
> eventually, the kind of "reward" making things interesting to
> users/testers might drastically differ. In example, in my special case,
> FishCAT is pretty attractive not because its points/scoring system or
> some public attention to achieve, but rather because I can provide
> feedback on issues that nag me once in a while and I have a more
> "straight connection" to people who could eventually hear me and change
> these things rather than just posting to an end-user mailing list to
> wait for something to happen...
>

Yes, it is really great to have contract with the GlassFish developers. They
are really professional and willing to listen.



>
> In my opinion, I think rewards based upon activity are a double-edged
> sword. On one side, of course, providing people with some return for
> doing something is good. On the other side however, providing people
> with "reward" for quantity of bugs filed doesn't seem a smart idea as
> it doesn't say anything about quality of bug filed (duplicates, simple
> misconfiguration issues, ...). In my testing of gfv3, I didn't really
> run into any serious issues worth reporting so I don't get points for
> filing any. Should a testing reward motivate people to file "much", or
> should it motivate to provide _good_ feedback? :)
>

I think previously FishCAT testing was basically, run off guys and tell us
if you see anything strange. This is needed of course.
But I would like to start some directed testing as well.
So a FishCAT can request to test that a specific bug has been fixed. An
extra pair of eyes helps the GlassFish developers for example.
Or test a specific feature.


The 'Current Focus' is basically verbatim what Eduardo from Oracle wants
from FishCAT. I broke this up further on the Wiki.
http://wiki.glassfish.java.net/Wiki.jsp?page=FishCAT2010SecHalf

The _good_ part is imperative, and yes, perhaps we can start a best
practices like so many other open source projects.
e.g. Before a issue is filed , ask about it on the GlassFish user mailing
list. etc.



>
> > > In the past I had a brief discussion with Judy regarding this topic
> > > and she was supportive on this. But that time Oracle was taking
> > > over Sun Microsystem and it wasn't very appropriate time to go
> > > further with it. Now I see again some understanding that people
> > > need to be motivated to do some testing so I'm bringing it up.
> >
> > Yes, motivation is the key here and not an easy topic at all. :)
>
>
> I trust in the idea of growing a lot of motivation out of enthusiasm -
> for a technology, for a project, for a community. Asides anything else,
> Sun did _rather_ good at that, looking at the various communities that
> used to exist. Hope Oracle will keep this up. ;)
>

I am sure they will :)
As one of the FishCat leads, I will strive for just that :)

regards
Richard.