[Kolab-devel] How to test the Kolab server (was: Re: Brain Dump of the Week: Ideas, Plans and Realities ...)

[Richard Bos]

Op maandag 23 november 2009 17:27:40 schreef Gunnar Wrobel:
> [snip]
>
> As pointed out by both Sascha and Bernhard before I also don't think  
> that building the packages is our core problem. Let me try to explain  
> why and then come back to the core problem we see: testing the server.
>
> The openSUSE build service is of course interesting. It would provide  
> one piece of a continuous integration setup - where code commits  
> directly lead to an updated server release that could be tested. Using  
> something like the openSUSE build service would help in producing  
> releases for several platforms simultaneously. Compiling these for  
> several distributions would certainly help the package quality.

I only mentioned the build service, as the OP wrote that someday maybe a shift 
from openpkg could happen (or not).  If that will take place, it is 
interesting to have a look at the build service.  The build is more much more 
than a service that build packages for different distributions, distribution 
versions and architures.  It is a collaboration service.  Packagers can easily 
work together to build packages, just like code version systems allow branches 
this thing allows branches as well.  I'm using the service quite long and very 
often I'm surprised how well it works.  It's difficult to explain if you have 
not worked with it, so I'm not going to do that.

As all of you say, testing is important but at the end of the testing phase 
code is waiting to be delivered and most likely it will be delivered via a 
package...  And this is also true for the testing suite.

If the Kolab Konsortium wants to shift away from openPKG, it will pick one 
other distro, with a long term contract (SLES, Ubuntu LTE, RH, CentOS, etc).  
The disadvantage might be that not all hardware platforms are supported, but 
that is something that will probably be overcome.  Test on that distribution 
and provide a rock solid groupware server.  If now the packages are build in 
the build services (which could be hosted on e.g. build.kolab.org, just like 
cvs) for that distribution, other packages could be build from the same 
sources and spec files at the same time.  Of course without the guarantee that 
it will work flawlessly, the community has to take care for that.  Will that 
happen I can't tell, is it the best solution, don't know.  It is just an 
example of what is possible.

-- 
Richard

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