[Mageia-bugsquad] Backports process (addendum to policy)

Thu Sep 8 12:59:10 CEST 2011

(QA Team and Triage team in CC, but please answer only to 
+mageia-dev at mageia.org)
+
+I was asked to define a process for backports validation, so here is a 
+proposal. We can discuss it a few days and then I'll add the result to the 
+backports policy page.
+
+Process for backports :
+
+Triage:
+- identify backport requests
+- add "Backport Request: " in the bug report summary
+- add the "backport" keyword
+- assign to maintainer
+
+The maintainer can refuse to do the backport :
+- doesn't want to maintain it => assign the bug report back to 
+bugsquad at mageia.org so that another packager can step in
+- has a good reason for not providing this backport (policy, possible 
+breakage...) => close as wontfix
+
+Packager:
+- create bug report if not done already
+- submit to {core,nonfree,tainted}/backports_testing
+- find a tester : original bug reporter when there is one, yourself if there's 
+none, or ask in forums/irc/MLs...
+- once tested by at least one person (it must be said explicitly in the bug 
+report), hand it to QA :
+  - make sure the bug report summary starts with "Backport Request: " or 
+"Backport Candidate: "
+  - add the "backport" keyword if missing
+  - assign to qa-bugs at ml.mageia.org
+  - list the source RPMs if there are several
+- be ready to fix bugs and answer QA team questions
+
+QA:
+- test backports the same way that we test updates. But don't forget that 
+updates have a higher priority than that of backports.
+- move the packages from backports_testing to backports
+
+Packager again:
+- be ready to fix bugs : once you pushed a backport, you have to maintain it 
+until the distribution's end of life :)
+
+Does this seem a good process, from the packager, QA and triage point of view?
+
+Best regards
+
+Samuel Verschelde
+