Why everyone should test the development branch

On 20/10/05, Jonathan Carter <jonathan at shuttleworthfoundation.org> wrote:
> Hi Matt
>
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> > You've hit the nail on the head.  Hardware is one area where it's absolutely
> > critical that users test the development branch.  There is no possible way
> > that the development team can know whether your hardware stopped working in
> > Breezy unless you test it and report back.
>
> Is there some kind of open-source on-line infrastructure that could be
> put up on the ubuntu website, that would allow users to add products,
> and how well they work? This would obviously be hugely beneficial for
> both users and developers, and if it's more formal, users will be more
> happy testing it.
>
> How about integrating/developing this kind of environment into
> launchpad? Then I could click on "Help -> Feedback" in my camera
> software and enter which camera i used, and how well it worked.

I guess that was the original goal of the Hardware Support on the wiki
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport

The problems are that it is manual so not friendly for users to add
to, and now not-really known with the large majority of users which
makes it very incomplete.
But users are willing to help.  A couple of months ago, I put on
planet.u.c a call to help with the printer hardware compatibilkity
section of the wiki, and we got dozen and dozen of new entries for
printers.  I guess the same could be done with the other types of
hardware.

The Ubuntu Hardware Database applications was also a small step in
that direction, but last time I checked, you couldn't really query it,
and didn't included things like digital cameras.


--
Daniel Robitaille