Re: RFC: starting a kernel-testers group for newbies

[Adrian Bunk]

On Thu, May 01, 2008 at 12:30:00PM +0200, Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> 
> <big_snip />
> 
> Hi folks,
> 
> 
> what do you think about Gentoo's "bug-wrangler" concept ?
> Maybe could do something similar:
> 
> An Tester group (which eg. should be the entry point for newbies),
> is responsible for receiving bug reports from users (maybe even 
> distro maintainers who're not directly involved in kernel dev.). 
> They try to reproduce the bugs and find out as much as they can,
> then file a report to the actual kernel devs (just critical bugs 
> are directly kicked to the devs with high priority). Maybe this 
> group could also keep users informed about fixes and give some 
> upgrade advise, etc.
> 
> This way we can build an good technical support (independent
> from distributors ;-P), newbies can learn on the job and te 
> load on kernel devs is reduced, so they can better concentrate
> on their core competences.
> 
> What do you think about this ?

Andrew already does more or less this.

The problems are:
- kernel bugs tend to very quickly reach the state where you need expert
  knowledge in some area, and there's definitely not much room for
  newbies in bug handling
- "try to reproduce the bugs" works for much software, but in the 
  kernel bugs often tend to depend on some specific hardware

> cu

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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