Revolution 2.8.1: a 240+ bug fixes/improvements! What about the remaining 1879?

[Joel Guillod]

Dear Revolutionists,

A warm thank you very much to Runrev for having fixed more than 240  
bugs.

I would like to know how successfull is the open beta and what  
criterion have been defined at the beginning of the quality way last  
November. It would be interested to get the results of the last open  
beta anonymous survey.

With my background in scientific research let me try to present  
formally known data about Revolution bugs and make some comments  
carefully:

MOTIVATIONS AND OBJECTIVES:
- I have personally reported major or blocking bugs still unresolved  
nor closed (even more than a year old).
- Respectable persons were unfairly flamed for having objectively and  
politely requested about the quality work and to understand  
procedures transparently (that's ISO 9xxx quality management  
procedures, isn't it?).
- Public declarations, apologizes and/or promises not to repeat  
*exceptional* unhappy events from Runrev appeared to me a different  
story from facts reported by the rev-list and experiences.
- Actually I want to get a better picture of what's really the gain  
of the current quality step initiated by Runrev and then the future I  
can expect for my favorite IDE.

METHOD:
- Queries done today (2007-05-17) with the most recent version of  
stack "STSRevZilla".

RESULT:
- At the time of the queries RevZilla found that 1879 bugs are  
neither resolved, nor closed:
   580 are new, the oldest one was created on 2003-10-28
   129 are pending, the oldest one was created on 2003-10-24
   1079 are new, the oldest one was created on 2003-06-16
   53 are assigned, most are enhancement requests, 2 are major, 1  
minor, one norma, the oldest one was created on 2003-06-24
   37 are reopened, oldest created on 2003-08-12
  1 is verified, created on 2005-06-15.

- RevZilla found that 3067 bugs are either resolved or closed:
   2729 bugs are marked resolved.
   338 bugs are marked closed.

- Among the 1879 bugs that are neither resolved, nor closed today:
   227 has severity of "blocker", "critical" or "major" (126 bugs  
before 2006-11-10 and 103 bugs reported during the open beta process).
   821 has severity "enhancement".

- The Open Community Beta for 2.7.5 has been annonced on November  
10th 2006 (http://www.runrev.com/newsletter/november/issue13/ 
newsletter1.php).
- the first bug notified on 2006-11-10 is #3967 (concerning version  
2.6.1 it is now resolved/closed).
- the first bug notified on 2006-11-10 for version 2.7.5 is #3968  
(now closed/not a bug).
- since this opening date 1013 bugs have been notified and  
categorized as followed:
   345 bugs have been notified (created) and resolved.
    85 bugs have been notified and closed.
  584 bugs have been notified but still neither resolved nor closed.

COMMENTS:
- Remember that some of the bugs notified in revzilla are enhancement  
requests.
- Out of the 1879 remainging reported bugs 584 of them has been  
reported after the beginning of the open beta, i.e. 1295 bugs  
reported prior the beta are still uncovered.
- It is surprising that as many as 227 bugs marked as "blocker",  
"critical" or "major" have not been processed during this quality  
step. 45% of them have been reported during the open beta process  
(126 of them were known prior the begining of the open beta and 103  
has been reported during the process).
- Because stsRevzilla does not let us search the date a bug is closed  
or resolved then it is simply difficult to compare the results above  
with the past state of November 2006. This comparison would have been  
interested in order to answer if Runrev has actually made a progress  
and how much of its resources it has spent in fixing new bugs  
introduced during this Open Beta process. Of course you should study  
this with care because among the 1013 bugs notified since November  
some are bugs present but not reported in older releases or new bugs  
introduced between 2.7.4 and the 2.8.1. Have a look to the list of   
bugs (since #3967) to make your own opinion on the amount of wasted  
workload the open beta may have self generated.
- So, impossible to know how Runrev count the 240+ bugs fixed.
- Also a deeper study would be necessary to evaluate how bugs were  
prioritized in the fix: is priority choosen by severity, by reporter,  
by date, by vote count?

CONCLUSIONS:
I dont want to comment on the success of this Open Community Beta. Of  
course this is not my job but among the other reasons, by rereading  
the original newsletter article, the objectives are still imprecise  
to me. So I let you make your own conclusions, positives and  
negatives, if applicable for you, and in such a context (this is no  
scientific way) tightly bound to your own expectations I guess. Just  
a few remarks:

1.- I am thankful to Runrev for trying to make Revolution better  
quality and to ensure its future.

2.- I was happy to read so much excitements from major  
revolutionaries to applaude the 2.8.1 release on both the use and  
improve lists.

3.- But do they have so secret, quick and reliable benchmarking &  
quality control tools for testing the 2.8.1 in order to convince us  
that the quality is actually achieved, or is such excitement mostly  
emotional? Such a so early reactions speaks by itself to my  
understanding and I will look to the newly reported bugs next weeks.  
On the one way I can applaude together with the people who honor the  
hard work of Runrev in a difficult way - but on the other way when  
looking to the data results shown above I cannot say that Runrev has  
arrived to the top of the mountain and can take a break to enjoy the  
sunrise. Hopefully there are promises for a 2.9 soon. I wish Runrev  
not to have an additional 1013 reported bugs for this next step.

4.- I am not so sure that the integration of Altuit products is a  
major change for those who already got it. Consider that renewal fees  
will be higher for those who didn't need them and also for those who  
already got them. A major change, humm?

5.- I regret that persons like Bernard Devlin and some others have  
not been taken for serious on the essential background of their  
remarks and that people have been able to change the focus of such  
important discussions to specific problems, like some kind of  
peculiar bug, occulting truth and major issues professionals are  
facing today with the Revolution future. More users than the  
exceptions publicly trumpeted have experienced real issues. Dont mask  
your face!

6.- Please, before writing any reaction to my post, please, please,  
first read the facts and react objectively on data, not with unique  
emotions. My mother language is not english and I cannot render all  
the subtilities and nuances I would like to in my (preliminary)  
conclusions. Hopefully most of you will understand that when human  
beings like Bernard are despaired in a recurring situation then it is  
good that they react as sentinels to underline important issues in  
the strategy, the implementation of quality programs and the public  
relationship to customers' base. The motivation for such valuable  
sentinels is not to flame individual or company but to get solutions,  
better solutions to solve the issues customers are experiencing. It's  
an eternal and universal law that only the one (company or  
individual) who faces the truth and reacts appropriately stays alive  
for the long term and experiences a growth for the best. Remember  
what's happened to antic cities when citizens have not listened to  
their sentinels and had considered them with contempt!

Sincerely yours,
Joel