So I am finally making real progress on the Bugzilla 3.4 support. At the current rate, I hope to have a final release in the next 4 weeks or so. 3.4 has done a bang up job on getting hooks in most of the places I need them (thanks Max) and now supports extensions in earnest. This adds some complications to the upgrade process. I am in the process of moving all the Testopia files into the extensions directory of Bugzilla. I am not sure there is a sane way to script the upgrade because of this, since anyone with customizations or modifications could potentially be broken. The best thing might be to write up detailed instructions on how to copy and move the files into the extensions area.
For those interested, it appears that the patch for 3.2 applies cleanly to 3.4 and Testopia 2.2 appears to function just fine in that environment. I have not done thorough testing on this so I don't recommend it for production, but if you are itching to use Bugzilla 3.4 with Testopia. Following the instructions for installing with 3.2 should work for the most part.
Now for the bad news.
At the end of May, Novell announced that they were outsourcing almost my entire department. As part of the outsourcing agreement, I was moved to the outsourcing company. I have spent the last couple of months getting acquainted with my new employer and learning what is in store. As part of the transition, many of my current responsibilities will be sent to the support department in India and I will be assigned other roles and projects. I see this as a great opportunity to expand my horizons. As a result of this however, I will not be able to continue making regular contributions to Testopia until, and unless, Novell specifically requests these services from me.
Suffice it to say, the future is hazy at this point. Though I thoroughly enjoy working on this project, I don't have the time or drive to continue doing so outside of my regular work hours except on a very limited basis. As it happens, I inherited this project from Ed after he got hired at a new location that limited his time to devote to the project. Interesting how the wheels of time turn isn't it?
What does this mean for Testopia? Well, I remain committed to getting the 3.4 release completed. I will continue to offer support in the mailing lists and in the chat room as I have time and will continue to work on bug fixes and review submissions. However, I don't see much time for new enhancements and major changes going forward unless this comes from the community. I would like to continue my role in the project until someone expresses interest in coming up to speed with the code and taking on the responsibility.
I sincerely hope that the project will continue to grow. I have faith that there will be enough community involvement to maintain it for the future. I will do what I can to ensure that it does. In the meantime, watch for the next release in the coming weeks.
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4 comments:
Just wondering what the latest progress was on testopia. We just upgraded to BZ 3.4 and about a week after that I found Testopia which looks to be great for us but we can't install something that isn't supported! I'm itching to get it installed because we are about to start rolling on a major release validation.
These are bad news. My company just decided to go with Testopia and Bugzilla for test case and inicdent management. We are currently running the first big user acceptance test with it and we are really satisfied. I hope that you will be able to get support from the community. Maybe we can contribute, too?
You are always welcome to contribute. As an open source project, Testopia is really community supported anyway. Novell does not offer commercial support for it, nor does any other company that I am aware of. If anyone is willing to do so, I am willing to work with them to drive the project forward. Just because I am not able to devote virtually all my time to this project as I have done much in the past, doesn't mean it is dead or unsupported. The bulk of the work is done anyway. What remains is some enhancements and a few bugs, but no software is ever completely bug free. Feel free to submit any work you want to do.
I am amazed at the lack of information about Testopia. I am unable to find any information about what Testopia does and anything about the features. 99% of what I can find is about how to install. For this reason, I very much doubt that this product has a chance to be successful.
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