Re: [MiNT] freemint 1.16.0b stability

["Konrad Kokoszkiewicz" <draco@obta.uw.edu.pl>]

Hi Evl

>> It's obviously useless to repeat the 100th time, that the alpha
>> kernel is for testing and it would be very nice, if users try it out
>> before a beta appears.
>
> Personally I think that expecting people to bugtest your software,
> when only sources over CVS is available, is a bit optimistic.

"Optimistic" is the right word to say, if one thinks that there can exist a
stable OS without testing. And who is running alpha kernels? Frank, me and
Ozk? So no wonder that there can be undetected problems on other machines,
if nobody bothers to check if an alpha works, and even if he does, does not
bother to report problems (-> bugtracker).

Obviously, there are things which remain unfixed for long time, because
developers are lazy or nobody has an idea why the bug occurs. AFAIK, this
occurs quite often also in other OSes, e.g. FreeBSD. But there's also
another reason, why the bugs one may notice ain't fixed: because nobody
except this one user suffers from them.

> Please
> provide binaries (say nightly builds like with other popular open
> source
> projects) then I belive you'd have a lot more alpha-testers, me
> included.

Well, I provide compiled binaries from time to time on my page. I do it
rarely, sure, but the purpose it alphatesting. I wonder all the time, if
anyone is downloading the binaries I put there, because the feedback is
zero. And when finally beta appears, there's big crying everywhere that this
or that doesn't work.

Perhaps it would make sense to install some cron task that would daily (or
nightly) compile all the kernels and provide to download for the users who
don't have CVS access? F.e. between 6 am and 7 am CEST, so that night owls
don't mess in the source already, and morning birds don't yet.

--
CVV
Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz, http://draco.atari.org

** Ea natura multitudinis est,
** aut seruit humiliter, aut superbe dominatur.
** Taka to juz natura pospólstwa, albo sluzalczo sie plaszczy,
** albo bezczelnie sie panoszy. (Liwiusz XXIV, 25).