On Fri, Aug 05, 2005 at 10:07:18AM -0500, Bob Jamison wrote:
What I have seen on the lists is the equation of "tester" and "user," although in reality this is not the same. Of course people need to try it out, find bugs, etc. But there is also metrics-style testing, which can be purely performance measures, bug counts, memory consumption, footprint, clicks-per-operation, DTP-style testing, etc..... This can be some very arcane conversation. It is possible for a person to do this, and not be an Inkscape user at all.
I agree. I think that user, developer, and _tester_ are three very different roles. For a small open source project, the first two categories may be difficult to separate, but as the project grows the roles become notably different. For Inkscape I think we've far passed that point. I think we've reached the point at which 'tester' can be distinguished from either 'developer' or 'user', as well.
After looking long and hard at how testing works in open source projects, I also think that you can distinguish between "natural testing" as occurs as part of routine use of the program, and "synthetic testing" that is done through more artificial means such as memory consumption measures, clicks-per-operation, etc. These sorts of measurements can definitely be done by someone with a non-techical background, but as you point out, they're definitely beyond ordinary user behavior. I hope we can find people with this mindset, to help us in these areas. :-)
Bryce