RTEMS Release Snapshots

[Gedare Bloom]

Hi Chris et al.,

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 12:50 AM Chris Johns <chrisj at rtems.org> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I would like to announce the start of release snapshots from the master branch.
> A release snapshot will be created on the first day of each month. These are
> development snapshots so they can be unstable.
>
Thank you for taking this initiative, and I hope these are of only
incremental cost for you to produce.

When you say unstable, you mean they are not recommended for use in
baselining production for user projects, right?

What about their availability? How long will each release snapshot
remain hosted by RTEMS Project for public consumption?

> An announce email will be posted to user at rtems.org and devel at rtems.org with a
> link to the release files. The release snapshot's build results will be posted
> to build at rtems.org list and viewable in it's archive.
>
> Please download, test and post your results. Your feedback is welcomed and
> valuable to us as maintainer as well as the community.
>
> Snapshots
> ---------
>
> Release snapshots provide feedback to us about the state of a release as
> development happens. Releasing is a complicated process and it can break and rot
> if it is not run regularly. Release snapshot are part of our attempt to address
> this problem and to improve the overall quality of RTEMS releases.
>
> Testing
> -------
>
> There has been a lot of work in past few years to improve the testing of RTEMS.
> We would welcome your feedback. The best way to provide feedback is to post
> build results from your preferred host or post tests results for your BSP. The
> commands you use to build and test have a --mail option and they will post the
> results. The build mailing list is used to collect these results. You can
> subscribe here:
>
>  https://lists.rtems.org/mailman/listinfo/build
>
> If you need help posting build or test results please ask.
>
> Tiers
> -----
>
> RTEMS has a tier structure for BSPs to help us know the state of a BSP [1]. We
> have test results for some hardware and we would love to have more. At some
> point we will automatically collect the posted test results and create a "score
> board" to rank BSPs. For this to work and be of real value we need posted test
> results. You think this sound complicated to do but it is not that difficult and
> what it gives you and the community is really valuable.
>
I strongly encourage anyone with interest in a particular BSP to step
forward if willing to help in this vital effort at improving the
quality of RTEMS releases for that BSP. I'm a little worried that
these important notes about testing and tiers are being lost in the
announcement about release snapshots. For a robust RTEMS release
across a wide range of the targets, we definitely need some willing
stakeholders from the user community to volunteer!

> Thanks
> Chris
>
Thank you,
Gedare

> [1] Tiers
> https://docs.rtems.org/branches/master/user/hardware/tiers.html
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