[Koha] Koha 3.12 beta released (and you can help!)

[Jared Camins-Esakov]

About an hour ago I cut a beta for Koha 3.12.0. The tarball is available at
http://download.koha-community.org/koha-3.12.00-beta1.tar.gz and the
release notes at
http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob_plain;f=misc/release_notes/release_notes_3_12_0.txt;h=0e8a3cf74de202af325069b7aec329eff229ec11;hb=a4f4d69c3b0f82e765b20cdee7be95456ee9db23

Packages will follow in the squeeze-dev repository sometime at the
beginning of the week.

As a reminder, Koha 3.12 is in feature freeze so any features that are not
in the beta will not be in Koha 3.12, and I will not respond to any
complaints about features that didn't make the cut-off other than
forwarding them to the Koha mailing lists.

So, what now? Now, we seek out and destroy bugs! If you have a spare
testing server, take the beta for a spin, and try to break it. "Sure," you
say, "I know that I can do that. But what can I help with that deserved an
exclamation mark in the subject line?" I'm glad you asked. Here is a list
of some things that need to be done before May 22:

* Koha has to be translated.
  I will be asking the Translation Manager to pull the latest strings into
Pootle so that the translation teams can get a head start (and if you know
any language other than American English, you can help translate! Head on
over to http://translate.koha-community.org/ and get started)

* Koha's documentation has to be updated.
  We have a Documentation Manager, but if you have any ideas about how to
document a new feature, or an old feature, or clarify instructions, you,
too, can write documentation. Take a look at
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Editing_the_Koha_Manual if you want to
work on this.

* Koha's installation instructions need to be updated.
  Some of the installation instructions that are included in the tarball
were last updated (for all practical purposes) in 2010. That's a long time
ago in computer time. If you have some thoughts on how the various
INSTALL.* files in the tarball might be updated to be more clear, open up a
text editor and send in your corrections (preferably as a patch, but if you
have suggestions and are not comfortable with git, an e-mail to koha-devel
will work too).

* Enhancement bugs need to be reclassified.
   During the 3.12 release cycle we added a new category of bug report:
"New feature." However, a lot of the new features that are going into 3.12
are still listed as "enhancements" in Bugzilla, which means the automated
release notes generator doesn't pick them up properly. Any time the RM
spends fixing that is time the RM does not spend fixing problems with Koha.
This is is a task that anyone can do. All it takes is a bit of critical
thinking and an account on Bugzilla:
http://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/

* Open bug reports need to be (re)confirmed.
   We have scads of bug reports in Bugzilla, and many of them probably
report bugs that have been fixed for weeks, months, or years. If we can get
all the bugs that are already fixed closed, it'll be easier to focus on the
bugs that still exist. Head on over to Bugzilla, choose some old bugs, and
start testing!

* Bugs need to be fixed.
   This goes hand-in-hand with the testing that you've all heard me to talk
to death, but once a bug has been found, it has to be fixed. If you know
how to fix a bug, please do!

* Bug fixes need to be tested.
   There are many bugfixes already on bugzilla, and there will be many more
being written in the next two months. After a patch has been written, it
has to be tested by at least one third party (i.e. not the developer and
not me) in order to move through the QA process to inclusion in Koha. Even
if you don't have a spare server, you can test patches in the sandboxes
hosted by BibLibre: http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Sandboxes

* Volunteers must be found, recruited, and/or made for 3.14.
   If you want to be involved in 3.14, there's still time to volunteer for
an open position. Just put your name on the ballot at
http://wiki.koha-community.org/wiki/Roles_for_3.14

Regards,
Jared Camins-Esakov

-- 
Jared Camins-Esakov
Bibliographer, C & P Bibliography Services, LLC
(phone) +1 (917) 727-3445
(e-mail) jcamins at cpbibliography.com
(web) http://www.cpbibliography.com/