LibreOffice 3.6.7 on Ubuntu: 547 bug fixes and zero known, well-triaged regressions against version 3.6.0 on release
Dear Prudence, won't you come out to play
Dear Prudence, greet the brand new day
-- Dear Prudence, White Album, Beatles
Yesterday, I put a build of LibreOffice 3.6.7 in the according Ubuntu PPA. As LibreOffice 3.6.7 is the last minor release update for the 3.6 series this is a good time to have a look back and see how our choice of a train release model pays off. For this I had a look at the number of bugfixes and the regressions over the series. First lets look if there were any regressions in the minor series: that is, if there is something which worked in 3.6.0, but which stopped working in 3.6.7. For LibreOffice 3.6.7 we look at:
- known issues (that is: they have to be reported e.g. at our Bug Submission Agent)
- they have to be well-triaged to be a real problem (that is: They cant be in bug status NEEDINFO or UNCONFIRMED -- which would mean that they are incomplete)
- they have to be marked as a regression
- they have not been there in 3.6.0, otherwise they would not be a minor release regression
- they are not fixed in one of the 3.6.1 -- 3.6.7 minor release updates.
- they have to affect Linux
Does this mean that LibreOffice will give you a hard guarantee on this? No, the release train model of LibreOffice is more important: It keeps everyone accountable and gives users a reliable date and time for a new release to test and use. So LibreOffice will not "stop the train", if such a bug candidate is found. If you for example extend the above query to all platforms you will see it return 5 bugs from other platforms. It is unlikely that there are "real" minor release regressions though: those issues are just not confirmed to have been there at 3.6.0 already.
Enough talk about regressions in the 3.6 series -- lets have a look at the positive things in minor releases: bug fixes. Despite LibreOffice 3.6.7 on Linux having no known, well-triaged release regressions, it has 547 bugs fixed against 3.6.0. So for Ubuntu users installing 3.6.7 this is the picture:
So much for the quality of minor releases, but what about major releases? Well, for major releases there is one additional important factor: timely reporting. So lets have a look at LibreOffice 4 regressions that have been filed in a timely manner: That is, between the tagging of the first alpha on November 20, 2012 and the release of LibreOffice 4.0.0 on February 7, 2013. Bugzilla shows that currently more than 95% of these are already resolved, even though LibreOffice 4 will still see a few more minor updates.
For regressions reported in the alpha and beta phase before the tagging of the first release candidate on January 9, 2013 its even more impressive: All of those regressions are resolved by now.
I assume the statistics for LibreOffice 4.1 to become even more impressive as the LibreOffice bug triage contest was hugely successful and sure will help fast tracking the triage of bugs, getting them ready to be fixed by a developer quickly. Thanks to Joel Madero, Joren De Cuyper and Robinson Tyrone for organizing this awesome event and big "Thank you!" too to all the volunteers taking part in this.
Which finally brings us to the little tune quoted at the top-right of the post: The earlier you test LibreOffice and report an issue, the better for you and for the product. With LibreOffice 4.1 approching fast, I invite you to test what will become LibreOffice 4.2 by downloading a daily build, playing with its exciting new features and get involved on #libreoffice-qa while listening to Sir Paul doing his magic on the bass over ... Sir Paul doing his magic on the drums.
Originally published on 2013-07-23 12:58:33 on wordpress.