Archive-name: sources-test-faq Last-modified: Apr 24, 1994 Version: 1.9 Frequently Asked Questions for comp.sources.testers This article contains the answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) concerning comp.sources.testers. To submit questions (preferably with an answer) send email to: sources-testers-faq@sterling.com. If you wish to get the latest version of this file, send an email message to send-cst-faq@sterling.com and it will be mailed to you. Many FAQs, including this one, are availabl archive site rtfm.mit.edu in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers. The name under which a FAQ is archived appears in the Archive-name line at the article. This FAQ is archived as sources-test-faq. This article addresses: o What was comp.sources.testers created for ? o Why not use alt.sources ? o How do I get added of deleted from the list of testers ? o Where do I test my news software at ? ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: What was comp.sources.testers created for ? CHARTER: The purpose of this newsgroup is to give authors of software packages a place to post in hopes of finding people willing to test their packages. No source should ever be posted to comp.sources.testers. comp.sources.testers should be used as a first stage before posting to any of the source newsgroups, including alt.sources, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.unix, the various machine specific source groups, and even comp.sources.reviewed. Most of the subject lines should look like Subject: Need beta testers for ppother portable bitmap converter or perhaps final announcements like Subject: Done with gamma testing for ppmtovcr, posted to c.s.misc along with acknowledgments. Cross posts into comp.sources.testers are fine when there's an appropriate subject group. Topics like Subject: What metrics do you use for evaluating object-oriented programs? belong in comp.software-eng, not comp.sources.testers. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subjee alt.sources ? It seems to have been serving the community well. There are those that would *disagree*... Initially, alt.sources was established as a place where the net could post sources that was not moderated, such as comp.sources.unix. Its usage has evolved into a group where authors post beta software in hopes that people take the time to compile/debug them. The author then hopes to hear of problems from those who took the time to look at their packages. This approach forces all problems to be aired in public. Communication with the author before beta testing begins is not how alt.sources works today, flooding the net with alpha/beta software is. Blasting sources out everywhere is not for c.s.testers. The idea is to put people together to work towards improving a package. Authors may not want to post alpha (read that as knowingly buggy) code to the world. Many times the author of a package would like to have a small group of people actively working on a program. Often the author sets up a mailing list for the group members to use to pass ideas and bug fixes back and forth. It is much easier to post "oops, I was dumb" messages to an isolated, much smaller, and more interactive group than to post messages of this type to the world. Another problem with alt.sources is that many sites do not take the newsgroup e on the end of slow links which must pay to receive news. With comp.sources.testers, a site of this type can receive this low volume newsgroup and still be a part of the potential beta testing community. And as for the signal to flame ratio in alt.sources... Never mind. :-) -------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Is there a list of people willing to try things out ? The following have offered to be Beta Testers on a request by request basis. Do not expect that they will always have the time or interest to be a tester. Their inclusion on this list is strictly voluntary and thecommended for their contributions. Shyela S. Aberman labsha@unix.cc.emory.edu Systems: Macintosh (Quadra 800 w/ CD-ROM w/DAT drive, Centris 650 w/ CD-ROM w/color monitor, IIsi w/color monitor, IIfx w/two-page monitor, all w/ Ethernet and System 7.1) Intel '486 w/ Windows 3.1 w/ DOS 5.0, 6.0 w/ SoundBlaster w/ CD-ROM w/ SVGA (IBM PS/ValuePoint 433DX/D) SunOS 5.3/Solaris 2.3 (Sun SPARCserver 1000) Darren R. Alomes alomes@ist.flinders.edu.au Systems: 486 DX 50 Mhz DOS 6.2 windows 3.1 Apricot 486 DX 33 Network, Novell 3.11, Windows for Workgroups Mac II VI, CD Rom, System 7 Pro X system, OpenLook, Unix, Motif Amrish Amin a-amin@uiuc.edu Systems: 486-DX2/66 with SVGA and a 2X CD-ROM, Windows 3.1 + DOS 6.2 Macintosh IIsi with System 7.0.1 Nathan Bailey nbai1@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au System: 486-33, SVGA, Win3.1, MS-DOS, Linux, X-Windows (XFree86). (also DECstations running X as well!) Available to test any and all types of software, especially programming tools and games. Scott Baily sbaily@sdcc13.ucsd.edu System: 486DX33 SVGA(VLB) win 3.1 msdos 6.2 8Mb RAM Jose T Banez jayb@w System: 386sx-16, msdos5, win3.1, vga, math coprocessor. Kevin Boneham boneham@suntan.eng.usf.edu Systems: SunOs 4.1.3 with twm or olwm, 486dx-50mhz with msdos 5.0 386dx-33mhz with msdos 6.0 windows 3.1. Mike Borzumate faf@faf.org Systems: 386 MS-DOS, MS-WINDOWS, ULTRIX 4.1, SunOS 4.1.1 David Boyd Sterling Software dwb@sterling.com Systems: Suns, Dec Risc, Dec Alpha Jeremy Bresley bresley@badlands.nodak.edu Systems: 486sx-25, 4MB RAM, Adaptec 1522 SCSI, Conner 200MB disk and Toshiba XM-3401 CD-ROM Drive. DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1 Jon Charette egotrip@wpi.wpi.edu System: 386SX-20, VGA, Win3.1, MS-DOS, some UNIX Chris Chay mcc3m@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu System: 486-50 DX, 8meg ram, Win 3.1, Dos 5.0, SB, 14.4 modem. Mohamed Chlendi chlendi@ensic.u-nancy.fr Systems: PC 386/486: DOS (5 & 6.0), Windows (3.1) UNIX: SUN SPARC, IBM RS6000, HP Macintosh: LCII, 2CX Christian Claiborn claiborn@express.ctron.com Systems: SPARCs running SunOS and Solaris, various Indigo's of random flavors, DECstations (RISC), and IBM RS6k's. X11R5, Motif, OpenWindows available. Randy Cutshaw randy@biosym.com Systems: Mac IIvx, Quadra 660av, Quadra 840av, Apple MPW with C++ and MacApp, Symantec Think C++. and IBM 486/66, 16mb ram, CD drive, P9000 video card tape drive. Visual C++. Naciketa Datta cs2dy@altair.herts.ac.uk System: Amiga 1200 80 Megs Hard Drive, 6 Megs RAM, SEGA Megadrive Atari Lynx Jan-Claas Dirks dirks@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de System: Amiga 4000/040, OS3.0, 10 MB, 460 MB HD, Piccolo GfxBoard 2MB (EGS), SAS/C 6.5x Laurent Duperval duperval@iro.umontreal.ca Systems: Linux box (486/33, 16 MB RAM, 1024x768 SVGA, with X and Xview Sun machines, 4.1.x and Solaris SGI 4D and SGI Indogos running Irix Bob Glass rmglass@cs.tamu.edu Systems: 486DX-33 compatable, 8MB ram, 290MB HD, OAK (087) SVGA 1MB MSDOS 6.2, Windows 3.1, QEMM 7.03, LANtastic AI/v5.0 386SX-16 compatable, 2MB ram, 40MB HD, Vanilla VGA 256K OS as above..., Helpful with OS/2, DESQview/X, pcAnywhere. Lloyd Goad lgoad@lnetbbs.win.net System: 486 DOS WIN3.1 Stan Golob sgolob@fairviewc.ab.ca Systems: 486SX/25, CD, SoundBlaster, Vis C++/Pascal Teemu Hakala Teemu.Hakala@krk.fi Systems: Sun Sparc, X, 486SX, DOS/Win31 Tom Harvey tharvey@mcs.dundee.ac.uk System: Apple Macintosh Calvin Hass chass@unixg.ubc.ca Systems: DELL Dimension XPS P60 (60 MHz Pentium) with 16 Mb RAM, GXE #9 Video Card with 3 Mb Video RAM, DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. Malassic (68020) with 4 Mb RAM System 7.1 Macintosh LC III (68030) with 4 Mb RAM System 7.1 Macintosh Plus (68000) with 4 Mb RAM System 7.1 Franz Hemmer franz@hemsoft.ping.dk Systems: 486/DX40 VLB,4 MB RAM, 200MB HD, DOS 6.2, Windows 3.1, 24-bit Optima SVGA card, 9600 baud Nokia modem. Steve Hoffman steveh@eskimo.com System: DOS, WINDOWS Peter Kraatz pkraatz@netlink.nix.com System: 386sx 33mhz with SVGA, 8megs ram, MS-Dos, Windows 3.1, Soundblaster Pro, U.S. Robotics 14.4 Sportster modem. Peter Leonard PELeonard@Vassar.edu System: Amiga 3000T/30 Workbench 2.1, Amax II+ Macintosh Emulator with System 7.01. Karl Mitschke karl.mitschke@tek.com Systems: 386/40 with 20MB ram, 150MB HD, DOS 6.2/WfW3.11 and NT, cdrom 483/33 with 20MB ram, 300MB HD, running NTAS, cdrom Terry Monnett tmonnett@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu System: Macintosh 610, system 7.1 with a cd-rom Mathew Mornoe mmonroe@nyx.cs.du.edu Systems: NeXT, HP-UNIX, 486/66 8mb RAM SVGA (Genoa TurboWindows ISA 24bit color) Nancy I Nagle nagle@anthro.utah.edu System: Macintosh Nathan Neulinger nneul@cs.umr.edu System: Macintoshs Christopher Pankhurst csap@socs.uts.edu.au System: Xwindows and IBM XT or AT Jason Philbrook jasonph@wpi.edu System: DOS, WINDOWS David Pifke socrates@crl.com Systems: 386DX-40 (w/ 387) with Linux, OS/2 2.1, and MSDOS (with Windows 3.1) partitions. Non-root access to a SunOS system. Ben Pomeranz bap5@lehigh.edu System: 386DX 33MHz, MSDOS, Sound Blaster Chris Pope pope@neosoft.com System: 386SX 20mhz, 8 megs RAM, 500 megs HD, Sound Blaster clone Christopher Samuel chris@rivers.dra.hmg.gb Systems: Unix Joju Sebastian Joju.Sebastian@lambada.oit.unc.edu System: DOS Robert Smithson. RCS1000@archer.demon.co.uk Systems: OS/2 ver 2, Windows 3, MS-DOS Olga V. Tarkaeva olga@oit.cgu.chel.su System: 286-16MHz, Math-coprocessor, Sound Blaster, 8-bit Arcnet Alex Teng idpt555@tpts1.seed.net.tw tem: DOS, WINDOWS, NOVELL, UNIX, NT Jerry D. Vergeront verge@selway.umt.edu System: 386sx-25, msdos5, win3.1, vga, sound blaster Kent Villard villard@venus.cc.hollandc.pe.ca System: 100% IBM compatible with DOS/WINDOWS Steven Webb webbs@mozart.cs.colostate.edu System: 486DX50 with an orchid 1280+ videocard. Colorado Memory Systems Jumbo 250 tape drive, Windows 3.1 Desqview/X 1.0 Sound Blaster Linux, OS/2. Dan Weeks z_weeksdj@ccsvax.sfasu.edu System: 386SX-25MHz, Math-coprocessor, DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1, Visual C++ David Zawalick zawalick@soda.berkeley.edu Systems: DOS, Windows, OS/2, X, UNIX ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: How do I get added or deleted from the list of testers ? Send email to: testers@sterling.com Make sure that you clearly indicate you want to be included or removed from the list. Please include the types of platforms that you have available for testing. I will from time to time contact you to assure that you still wish to be included on the list. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Where do I test my news software at ? Please do *not* post test messages to comp.sources.testers ! If you wish to test your news software, create a local group and try using that first. When that works, locate a regional group to test posting articles to the world. Ask your upstream feed for the name of a regional newsgroup nearest you. If you really feel that you must post a test message that needs to go to most every news system worldwide, use misc.test, or news.test. Just remember, messages posted to the world costs oey. ================================================================== #! rnews 1392 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Path: pagesat.net!news.cerf.net!mvb.saic.com!MathWorks.Com europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.msfc.nasa.g