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January MAMETesters Challenge
Since now is the time for New Year's resolutions, I am making one: I want to significantly reduce the number of bugs in the MAMETesters database.
To help motivate this to happen, I'm trying an experiment: the January
MAMETesters challenge. Here are the rules:
- The challenge runs from Jan 1, 2008 through Jan 31, 2008
- In response to fixing MAMETesters bugs, I will personally donate to the dumping project:
- $10 for each red/yellow bug fixed
- $5 for each green/gray/orange bug fixed
- In addition, for every 25 bugs fixed total (of any type), I will donate an extra $100
- Only bugs that are present in the database as of Dec 30, 2007 qualify
(no, you can't create a bunch of new bugs and fix them!) - Bugs can be "fixed" in one of two ways:
- An actual fix is verified and checked into the sources
- The bug is disproven or otherwise shown to be invalid
(note that merely discovering a stale bug report doesn't count) - No hacks allowed (obviously); fixes must meet the usual quality standards
- The maximum total donation will be $2000
(just in case this effort exceeds my wildest dreams; hey, I'm not made of money!)
I have to imagine that fixing 100+ bugs is attainable in a month, especially given that there is probably a lot of low-hanging fruit present. Fixing 100 bugs will net between $900 and $1400 for the dumping project, so I hope that is good incentive!
Obviously, this is primarily targeted at the developers, but external submissions that address bugs will count toward these totals.
I'll post periodic updates on how we're doing thoroughout the month.
FYI, here are the stats as of Dec 30 (912 bugs total):
| Category | Red | Yellow | Green | Gray | Orange |
| Current | 8 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 1 |
| Known | 56 | 58 | 365 | 0 | 0 |
| Possible | 1 | 5 | 133 | 1 | 1 |
| DIPs | 0 | 0 | 1 | 81 | 0 |
| Orange | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 89 |
| Totals | 65 | 64 | 604 | 88 | 91 |