[Mageia-dev] Backports process (addendum to policy)

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Samuel Verschelde at 08/09/11 11:59 did gyre and gimble:
> (QA Team and Triage team in CC, but please answer only to 
> mageia-dev at mageia.org)
> 
> I was asked to define a process for backports validation, so here is a 
> proposal. We can discuss it a few days and then I'll add the result to the 
> backports policy page.
> 
> Process for backports :
> 
> Triage:
> - identify backport requests
> - add "Backport Request: " in the bug report summary
> - add the "backport" keyword
> - assign to maintainer
> 
> The maintainer can refuse to do the backport :
> - doesn't want to maintain it => assign the bug report back to 
> bugsquad at mageia.org so that another packager can step in
> - has a good reason for not providing this backport (policy, possible 
> breakage...) => close as wontfix
> 
> Packager:
> - create bug report if not done already
> - submit to {core,nonfree,tainted}/backports_testing

Is this straight from the cauldron tree in subversion?

> - find a tester : original bug reporter when there is one, yourself if there's 
> none, or ask in forums/irc/MLs...
> - once tested by at least one person (it must be said explicitly in the bug 
> report), hand it to QA :
>   - make sure the bug report summary starts with "Backport Request: " or 
> "Backport Candidate: "
>   - add the "backport" keyword if missing
>   - assign to qa-bugs at ml.mageia.org
>   - list the source RPMs if there are several
> - be ready to fix bugs and answer QA team questions
> 
> QA:
> - test backports the same way that we test updates. But don't forget that 
> updates have a higher priority than that of backports.
> - move the packages from backports_testing to backports

Just from a man power perspective this, could be a lot of work for QA
(even at lower priority) but I cannot see a way to improve this without
sacrificing quality control!

Col

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Colin Guthrie
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http://colin.guthr.ie/

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