Testing Support for Releases

We intend to release code frequently to enable early testing of new functionality. To that end, we are planning bi-weekly releases leading up to the 1.1 General Availability release in late June, 2008. Details are available in the Roadmap. The intent is to allow ample time and opportunity for users and community members to assist with testing and to report/fix bugs.

We encourage your participation to help us thoroughly test each release. It's a great opportunity for both end users and technical types to provide valuable contributions to the project!!! Please download, install and test each release when it becomes available.

Issue & Feature Tracking

Reporting bugs & issues, suggesting improvements in existing features or proposing the addition of new features is strongly encouraged. Your suggestions will help us improve the overall quality and breadth of functions in the software. Taking time to clearly and concisely detail issues and feature requests helps us appropriately direct the request for response from the project team and contributors. Please follow suggestions provided below to ensure that relevant information is properly captured in the issue tracking system. You can access our issue tracking system here.

Submitting Bug Reports or Requesting Improvements to existing services & functionality

When submitting a bug report, please include the following information:

1. Please be constructive and purposeful with your comments.
2. Please be clear and concise in titling and stating the issue.
3. Provide the following information -
   1. Version of the download you are running
   2. The operating system you are using, e.g. Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP, Vista, Mac, etc.
   3. The type and version of browser software in use, ex., IE6, IE7, Firefox, etc.
   4. Repeatability of the problem - whether it is easy to repeat or happens randomly
   5. If its repeatable, exact steps to repeat - what you think caused the problem, ideally these steps should be repeated until they are as simple as possible and still cause the problem
   6. Desired outcome of the steps - that is, what you WANT to have happen
   7. Actual outcome of your steps - this is the essence of your problem
   8. Any trace (if there is one) or other technical information available that may point to the cause of the problem.

The goal is to provide enough information for someone with no prior knowledge of the bug to recreate the problem.

Submitting New Feature Requests

When submitting a request for a new feature, please make sure to keep it as brief and to the point as possible. Each new feature request should be submitted as a separate issue in the issue tracking system. Feel free to provide reasons why features should be added sooner rather than later, ex., such as the ability to take advantage of a market opportunity. Project leads will determine when new features are added and such decisions will take place in the context of and in alignment with the project roadmap. You are welcome to help develop or contribute code to help accelerate delivery of new features.

Using the Issue Tracking System

Please refer to the online instructions for basic details on use of the issue tracking system.

More extensive user documentation is available here.

Running Tests

See Testing Infrastructure to learn how to run our tests and add to them.