[wp-testers] Nightly Builds/WinZip Replacement

[Owen Winkler]

Achton N. Netherclift wrote:
> tsykoduk wrote:
>> [...] but why exclude folks who don't know what a tarball is? Does it 
>> really take that much longer to create a zipfile as well as a tarball? 
>> If wordpress was only aimed at sysadmins or other console jockeys, 
>> then I could see not having the zips, but as it stands, keep bolth.
> I think it's been said before, but I'll just repeat for good measure. 
> This is regarding the *nightlies/alphas*, not the actual WP-releases. As 
> such, IMHO, if you deem yourself experienced (and adventurous) enough to 
> use the nightlies, you should be able to figure out a solution for this 
> problem without asking the WP devs to supply us with more bandwidth, 
> diskspace, etc.

I wrote this elsewhere, earlier:

It is a bad idea to restrict nightlies based on someone’s knowledge of 
extracting files from archives.

Fundamentally, you do not need to know how to extract archives to do 
anything with WordPress other than access the files for installation. 
(Release versions are available in zip format too, after all.)  Knowing 
how to extract an archive also does not guarantee any inherent knowledge 
that would be helpful for testing or coding WordPress.

In fact, such a barrier may limit the kinds of users that might be 
useful to have test WordPress.  Willing users who are competent enough 
to upload files to their servers and provide bug reports are valuable. 
Using archive types that provide those users with a lower barrier of 
entry is a good thing.

If you want to prevent casual users from using nightlies, a better 
barrier would be to allow download of nightlies only by users who are 
logged into Trac.  At least then they would know where to file a bug 
report, which is a prerequisite for using a nightly for testing.

Owen