autobuild/autotest for OSGeo projects

[Frank Warmerdam]

Folks,

I would like to suggest that an automated build and smoke test be part
of the list of "highly desired features" of an OSGeo project.

By automated build and smoke tests, I mean that project source code
should be automatically built from CVS/SVN at least nightly and then
some sort of minimal automatic test be run against that version to
verify that the current version is at least minimally operational.  Ideally
such build and smoke tests could be done more often, even on demand.  And
ideally the automatic testing should be fairly extensive.  Furthermore,
ideally automatic notifications to developers, the developer mailing list
or somewhere similar should be done when the build or tests fail.

Howard Butler has done a bunch of work with "Build Bot" to make this
happen for GDAL and is now working on MapServer.  You can see an example at:

   http://gdal.builds.hobu.net/

I am sure that some of the projects already do this.  I think that GeoTools
has something like this that is somewhat Java oriented.  Is that right
Jody/Chris?  I also suspect that MapGuide already has this, though I don't
know if it is aimed at the OS (open source) version of MG.  Projects like
Mapbender, and MapBuilder that are client browser oriented might not make
sense to approach in the same way.  Arnulf, Cameron, can you comment on
whether there would be a meaningful way in which build and smoke test could
be applied automatically?

My intention isn't to mandate a particular approach to a build and smoke test,
but rather to push this as a highly desirable aspect of an OSGeo project.  I
do think that OSGeo ought to provide support to help setup this up for
projects that don't have their own way they would like to do this.  To this
end Howard has indicated a willingness to setup BuildBot support on an OSGeo
server at telescience for this purpose.

I would add, that I see this as an action in support of the OSGeo goal "To
ensure a high degree of quality in foundation projects in order to build and
preserve the foundation brand."

I have added this as an agenda item for the meeting tomorrow.  If we are
agreeable on this, my hope is that we can start setting up an OSGeo build
and smoke test server soon at telescience.  I have cc:ed Howard and also
Norman (who is responsible for OSGeo use of telescience systems) to this
end.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org