Kiwi TCMS is opening a call for proposals: Tell us how do you deploy, backup and upgrade your Kiwi TCMS containers? What environment do you use, how do you migrate data or ensure the system is always up and running? How do you go about testing if a newer version doesn't break the features that you use ? What best practices have you identified that can help others?

We are going to collect your feedback and update the existing documentation.

Please submit your responses here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe-kioT_e3UHwV5irwLroR2Jsk5oYM_Ls6acVeLVcBn7Kpt7Q/viewform. All fields are optional, including your email address!

Thank you and happy testing!

We're happy to announce the initial release of kiwitcms-django-plugin! This package allows you execute your Django test suite and report the results into Kiwi TCMS! This plugin has been developed by contributor Bryan Mutai as part of our open source bounty program.

To install:

pip install kiwitcms-django-plugin

and then in your settings.py specify:

TEST_RUNNER = 'tcms_django_plugin.TestRunner'

This plugin needs the ~/.tcms.conf configuration file:

[tcms]
url = https://tcms.server/xml-rpc/
username = your-username
password = your-password

Product information and how to report can be controlled via environment variables which are documented here. Example results from the plugin's own test suite are reported in TP-296!

Happy testing!

We are happy to announce that versioned releases of Kiwi TCMS container images are now available to customers with an active enterprise subscription.

For a long time our release policy has been to push only latest version of our upstream kiwitcms/kiwi containers. This upstream channel doesn't carry version tags and receives versioned releases only when there are backwards incompatible database migrations! This proved challenging to administrators who don't upgrade immediately to the latest version as soon as it comes out.

For example this happens in environments where admins use the upstream images as proof of concept and later switch to a production grade installation. Quite often they migrate to the Kiwi TCMS Enterprise containers during the same time.

Starting today versioned releases of Kiwi TCMS (single tenant) will be available via the mrsenko/kiwitcms private repository on Docker Hub. This repository includes tagged versions of the same docker images coming from the kiwitcms/kiwi channel! Access is granted automatically to all existing enterprise subscribers!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 8.4!

IMPORTANT: this is a medium sized release which includes minor security fixes, many improvements & bug-fixes and translations in several new languages. It is the second release to include contributions via our open source bounty program. You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  602dddcf41a7    646 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

Changes since Kiwi TCMS 8.3

Improvements

• Update Django from 3.0.5 to 3.0.7 - security update for functionality not used by Kiwi TCMS
• Update bleach from 3.1.4 to 3.1.5
• Update django-grappelli from 2.14.1 to 2.14.2
• Update django-simple-history from 2.9.0 to 2.10.0
• Update markdown from 3.2.1 to 3.2.2
• Update pygithub from 1.50 to 1.51
• Update python-redmine from 2.2.1 to 2.3.0
• Update patternfly from 3.59.4 to 3.59.5
• Add manage.py set_domain command to change Kiwi TCMS domain. Fixes Issue #971 (Ivajlo Karabojkov)
• GitHub bug details now works for private issues
• Gitlab bug details now works for private issues
• JIRA bug details now works for private issues
• Redmine bug details now works for private issues
• New feature: 1-click bug report for Bugzilla
• New feature: 1-click bug report for Gitlab
• New feature: 1-click bug report for JIRA
• New feature: 1-click bug report for Redmine
• Reverting to older historical version via Admin panel now redirects to object which was reverted. Fixes Issue #1074
• Documentation updates

Important

Starting from v8.4 all supported bug trackers now feature 1-click bug report integration! Here's an example of how they look like for GitHub and JIRA:

Note

Some external bug trackers like Bugzilla & JIRA provide more flexibility over which fields are required for a new bug report. The current functionality should work for vanilla installations and would fall back to manual bug reporting if it can't create a new bug automatically!

Database

• Force creation of missing permissions for m2m fields from the tcms.bugs app:
  • bugs.add_bug_tags
  • bugs.change_bug_tags
  • bugs.delete_bug_tags
  • bugs.view_bug_tags
  • bugs.add_bug_executions
  • bugs.change_bug_execution
  • bugs.delete_bug_execution
  • bugs.view_bug_executions

Warning

TCMS admins of existing installations will have to assign these by hand to users/groups who will be allowed to change tags on bugs!

Settings

• Define the KIWI_DISABLE_BUGTRACKER=yes environment variable if you wish to disable the internal bug tracker. Closes Issue #1370

Bug fixes

• Workaround missing MariaDB CHARSET/COLLATION support, see our docker-compose.yml. Fixes Issue #1700
• Install missing /usr/bin/mysql in container
• Warning message for unconfigured Kiwi TCMS domain does not show HTML tags in Admin anymore. Fixes Issue #964
• Unescape the & string when trying to open new windows after clicking the 'Report bug' button in TestExecution. Fixes Issue #1533
• Try harder to restore the original navigation menu instead of leaving bogus menu items. Fixes Issue #991
• Robot Framework plugin is now GA. Close Issue #984
• Add LinkReference to TestExecution after creating bug via 1-click. The UI still needs to be refreshed which will be implemented together with the redesign of the TestRun page
• Update documented signature for API method TestCase.add_component to match current behavior, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61648405/

Refactoring & testing

• Migrate check-docs-source-in-git to GitHub workflows. Fixes Issue #1552 (@Prome88)
• Migrate build-for-pypi to GitHub workflows. Fixes Issue #1554 (@lcmtwn)
• Add tests for TestCaseAdmin (Mariyan Garvanski)
• Add tests for BugAdmin. Fixes Issue #1596 (Mariyan Garvanski)
• Omit utils/test from coverage reports. Fixes Issue #1631 (@cmbahadir)
• Omit tcms/tests from coverage reports. Fixes Issue #1630 (@cmbahadir)
• Add tests for tcms.core.forms.fields - Fixes Issue #1629 (@cmbahadir)
• Add tests for TestExecution.update() for case_text_version field (Rosen Sasov)
• Refactor bulk-update methods in TestRun page to use JSON-RPC. Fixes Issue #1063 (Rosen Sasov)
• Start using _change_reason instead of changeReason field in django-simple-history
• Remove unused StripURLField & Version.string_to_id()
• Refactoring around TestCase and TestPlan cloning methods
• Start testing with the internal bug tracker disabled
• Start testing with all supported external bug trackers. Fixes Issue #1079
• Start Codecov for coverage reports
• Add tests for presence of mysql/psql binaries in container
• Add APIPermissionsTestCase with example in TestVersionCreatePermissions
• Move most test jobs away from Travis CI to GitHub workflows

Translations

• Updated Bengali translation
• Updated Bulgarian translation
• Updated Chinese Simplified translation
• Updated French translation
• Updated German translation
• Updated Hindi translation
• Updated Hungarian translation
• Updated Indonesian translation
• Updated Japanese translation
• Updated Korean translation
• Updated Russian translation
• Updated Slovenian translation
• Updated Spanish translation
• Updated Swahili translation

Note

Some of the translations in Chinese and German and all of the strings in Japanese and Korean have been contributed by a non-native speaker and are sub-optimal, see OpenCollective #18663. If you are a native in these languages and spot strings which don't sit well with you we kindly ask you to contribute a better translation via the built-in translation editor!

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
# !!! docker tag to keep older image version on the machine
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb-103-centos7
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

We are happy to announce that Kiwi TCMS is going to partner with Pionir on the development of open source hardware for testers! Pionir is a free school focused on creating a new generation of digital leaders, an exponential culture and solving challenges using technology. They are located in Kikinda, Serbia.

This is not our first collaboration - the students are already aware of the Kiwi TCMS project and last year they participated in presentation & workshop hosted by Alex. Zamphyr, the organization behind Pionir, is also one of the first open source projects on our OSS program!

Black boxes for black-box testing

Black-box testing is a method of software testing that examines the functionality of the subject under test without peering into its internal structures or workings. It is often performed by manipulating the possible inputs and examining the resulting output. Experienced black-box testers often develop a hunch for where bugs my be and it is not uncommon for them to discover some obscure problems nobody else thought about. More often than not the basis for this is developing an understanding/expectation how the SUT works by careful exploration during many iterations. Thus being able to explore a SUT, observe its behavior, keep mental notes about possible relations between input-behavior-output and analyzing what is happening under the hood becomes an important skill for testers.

The idea for having something unknown to explore & train your skills first comes from James Lyndsay’s Black Box Puzzles and was more recently implemented by Claudiu Draghia. Now it's our turn!

Project description

Pionir will be developing hardware black boxes for teaching exploratory testing in cooperation with Kiwi TCMS. We have dedicated €2000 from our bounty program for students of the free school towards completing this project.

The goal of the project is to produce at least 3 boxes and reference designs that will serve as a didactic tool for teaching, but also be free and open hardware, and as such, available to everyone to build from source.

This project will be trusted to the students of the free school who will get opportunity to take part in the challenging process of building a digital appliance, from designing the machine logic, to develop and prototype hardware.

The project includes designing, assembling, programming, documenting and delivering this hardware to us! Everything is expected to be open source: list of components, assembly instructions, 3D design files, source code, documentation and instructions! Our goal is that this will be relatively cheap and easy to build so everyone else can build their own boxes. During the next several months there will be new repositories created under https://github.com/kiwitcms to host the various boxes.

The black boxes are expected to be available in October 2020 - just in time for the upcoming conference season where members of the larger testing and open source communities will be able to practice with them!

Call for sponsors

We are also calling upon teams and organizations who use Kiwi TCMS in their testing workflows. Please consider making a one-time donation or becoming a regular sponsor via our Collective. You can contribute as low as € 1! The entire budget will be distributed to the community!

Vote for Kiwi TCMS

Our website has been nominated in the 2020 .eu Web Awards and we've promised to do everything in our power to greet future FOSDEM visitors with an open source billboard advertising at BRU airport. We need your help to do that!

• Go to https://webawards.eurid.eu/?q=kiwitcms.eu;
• Point your mouse to the photo of our website and click the Thumbs Up 👍 button;
• No email or registration required!

Happy testing!

We're happy to announce the initial release of kiwitcms-robotframework-plugin! This package allows you execute your Robot Framework test suite and report the results into Kiwi TCMS! This plugin is the brain child of our Luca Valentini and Aniello Barletta and has its roots in the Robot Framework Milano user-group.

To install:

pip install kiwitcms-robotframework-plugin

and then make use of it like so:

robot --listener zealand.listener.KiwiTCMS

The plugin needs the ~/.tcms.conf configuration file:

[tcms]
url = https://tcms.server/xml-rpc/
username = your-username
password = your-password

and you can also specify the ${plan_id}, ${product} and ${build_user_email} variables in your .robot files. If any of these are missing it will attempt to discover the necessary information from your environment. The exact behavior is documented here.

This plugin uses the upstream robotframework/WebDemo test suite with SeleniumLibrary in a combination with a downstream test with the OperatingSystem library. The results are reported in TP-290. For more information checkout our package repository on GitHub!

Happy testing!

Kiwi TCMS is donating € 10000 (ten thousand euro) to our community to enable more hands working together and give an opportunity for people to get exposed to open source contributions. You can read more about the rules of the program in Round 01!

Bounties announced in Round 02

Custom pylint plugins:

#736, #738, #1126, #1303, #1384

Automation tests:

#1596, #1597, #1598, #1599, #1600, #1601, #1602, #1603, #1604, #1605, #1606, #1607, #1608, #1609, #1610, #1611, #1612, #1613, #1614, #1615, #1616, #1617, #1618, #1619, #1620, #1621, #1622, #1623, #1624, #1625, #1626, #1627, #1628, #1629, #1630, #1631

Call for sponsors

We are also calling upon teams and organizations who use Kiwi TCMS in their testing workflows. Please consider making a one-time donation or becoming a regular sponsor via our Collective. You can contribute as low as € 1! The entire budget will be distributed to the community!

Vote for Kiwi TCMS

Our website has been nominated in the 2020 .eu Web Awards and we've promised to do everything in our power to greet future FOSDEM visitors with an open source billboard advertising at BRU airport. We need your help to do that!

• Go to https://webawards.eurid.eu/?q=kiwitcms.eu;
• Point your mouse to the photo of our website and click the Thumbs Up 👍 button;
• No email or registration required!

Happy testing!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 8.3!

IMPORTANT: this is a small release which updates 3rd party libraries, provides several improvements, includes minor API updates and new translations. It is the first release to include contributions via our open source bounty program. You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  c5dbd9a7ded6    562 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
# !!! docker tag to keep older image version on the machine
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb-103-centos7
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

Kiwi TCMS is donating € 10000 (ten thousand euro) to our community to enable more hands working together and give an opportunity for people to get exposed to open source contributions. You will help us complete pending tasks faster while learning something new and receive a bonus for your efforts! This blog post outlines the rules of our open source bounty program.

Who is eligible to participate

Everyone who meets the following criteria is eligible to participate:

• Has an account on https://opencollective.com - needed to follow program updates and request payments
• Has a bank account - needed for actual money transfer, more info below!

If you are beginner in Python, Django or some other technology that we use please consider available documentation, your local user group, developers forum and StackOverflow to get help. Do not turn GitHub issues into a "getting started in programming" discussion.

Engagement rules

• Program will be split into multiple rounds as we work to clearly define what needs to be done and adjust priorities
• News and updates will be posted at https://opencollective.com/kiwitcms/updates/
• You are expected to mostly work alone on issues
• Technical discussion will be happening via GitHub pull requests and/or GitHub issues under https://github.com/kiwitcms/Kiwi unless indicated otherwise
• Translation related discussion will be happening via Crowdin under https://crowdin.com/project/kiwitcms/discussions when needed
• Do not contact individual team members privately, we are going to ignore such messages

FIFO order for code review

• Contributions will be reviewed and merged in a rolling first-in-first-out order, that is we review 1 PR and while waiting for updates continue on the next in the queue
• In case of collisions, multiple contributions that try to resolve the same problem, our team will review the first one, then the second one, etc. The pull request which is first to pass DoD and code review will be merged and the conflicting ones closed
• Please comment on issues and work together with other community members to split the work and avoid collisions as much as possible

About issues

Our team will try to clearly describe each task and what constitutes a successfully completed task, e.g. definition of done (DoD). If this isn't the case please ask questions and seek clarification about such tasks.

• Only Issues under the bounty-program milestone AND labelled with a specific monetary amount are eligible for payout!
• Unlabelled issues need further refinement before they can be accepted for bounties!

Payout rules

Once DoD has been met and the contribution is merged you may claim the assigned bounty. You must perform the following steps:

• Submit an expense to the Kiwi TCMS Collective
• All expenses submitted to the Kiwi TCMS Collective must follow the invoicing rules of our Fiscal Host. Here is an invoice template (Google Doc) you can use. Fill-in the blue parts and leave the black parts
• Invoice & expense description contains the number of issue(s) and PR(s) for which bounty is claimed

Identity cross validation:

Once an expense has been submitted add a comment with your GitHub/Crowdin username to it + open a new issue in GitHub /new discussion in Crowdin with link to the expense submission. This will help us cross-validate that we are talking to the same person between platforms.

Note on bank transfers

A message from our Fiscal Host:

We currently prefer to do payouts using bank transfers. We used to support PayPal but fees were way too high for the collectives.

About bank transfer, we do EU transfers as well as non EU (which takes more time obviously).

We noticed that several collectives are now using Revolut bank accounts which is the easiest and cheapest way (it’s free) to receive money anywhere in the world.

It looks like the fastest & cheapest way to get paid is via Revolut account if you have one, followed by standard bank transfer and PayPal account is last!

Bounties: translation related tasks

• Chinese Simplified - #1459, #1460 #1461, #1462, #1463
• Hindi - #1464, #1465 #1466, #1467, #1468
• Indonesian - #1469, #1470 #1471, #1472, #1473
• Bengali - #1474, #1475 #1476, #1477, #1478
• German - #1505, #1506, #1507, #1508, #1509
• Japanese - #1489, #1490 #1491, #1492, #1493
• Swahili - #1494, #1495 #1497, #1498, #1499
• Vietnamese - #1484, #1485 #1486, #1487, #1488
• Korean - #1479, #1480 #1481, #1482, #1483

Bounties: test automation plugins

• Django test runner reporting plugin - #693
• py.test reporting plugin - #1511
• JUnit plugin: annotation & improvement for test case mapping - #1512
• TestNG plugin - #692

Bounties: assorted technical issues

• pylint - #1192
• JavaScript: Add buttons for creating tables in text editor - #1531
• Migration from Travis CI to GitHub workflows - #1550, #1551, #1552, #1553, #1554

Call for sponsors

We are also calling upon teams and organizations who use Kiwi TCMS in their testing workflows. Please consider making a one-time donation or becoming a regular sponsor via our Collective. You can contribute as low as € 1! The entire budget will be distributed to the community!

Vote for Kiwi TCMS

Our website has been nominated in the 2020 .eu Web Awards and we've promised to do everything in our power to greet future FOSDEM visitors with an open source billboard advertising at BRU airport. We need your help to do that!

• Go to https://webawards.eurid.eu/?q=kiwitcms.eu;
• Point your mouse to the photo of our website and click the Thumbs Up 👍 button;
• No email or registration required!

Happy bounty hunting!

Scenario: Display open source advertising in Brussels airport
    Given one of the prizes is a 2 month billboard advertising campaign
    And the awards ceremony is on Nov 18th 2020
    When Kiwi TCMS wins
    Then there is good chance this campaign coincides with FOSDEM

• Go to https://webawards.eurid.eu/?q=kiwitcms.eu;
• Point your mouse to the photo of our website and click the Thumbs Up 👍 button;
• No email or registration required!

Out team promises to do everything in our power so that visitors to FOSDEM 2021 start feeling the community vibe directly at the airport!

Please vote and share.

Thank you!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 8.2!

IMPORTANT: this is a small release which updates 3rd party libraries, provides minor improvements, minor API changes and some new translations. You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  7c1b947b9a43    561 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb-103-centos7
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

# starting from an older Kiwi TCMS version
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
edit docker-compose.yml to use kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate
# repeat until you have reached latest

Kiwi TCMS is the proud winner of a $10,000 award from Mozilla, Indeed, Open Collective, Ford Foundation & Simply Secure. Read below for the full story!

At the end of January Zahari alerted our team about the Open Source Speed Dating FOSDEM 2020 event and Alex was very swift in filing the application form. Just as we landed in Brussels, ready to host Testing and Automation devroom and the Open Source Test Management stand, we got the news - Kiwi TCMS has been selected as a participant.

What followed was a very hasty day of preparing a 5 min pitch and rehearsing it as much as possible so we can be ready to present our project. Alex prepared the pitch and made final review and polishing together with Anton. For the record everything was written down on paper, including important facts about the project and schedule - when and where is our slot, how is Alex going to get there, when does he need to leave to be on time, etc. We believe that preparation was key here and that's why our team always tries to be prepared when we participate at events! It was as good as it can get, no more changes!

On Feb 1st all hell broke loose - it was day #1 of FOSDEM, the Testing an Automation devroom was full with amazing speakers and packed with people, watch videos here, there was barely time to eat or drink water and at 5PM Alex had to rush across town to pitch Kiwi TCMS!

Then everything went like clockwork - weather was warm for the season, Alex decided to walk from ULB to La Tricoterie, both so he doesn't get stuck in traffic but also to regulate stress level and be clear minded for what comes next. He arrived just on time to meet with new folks and have a glass of wine before taking his turn with the judges.

Open Source Speed Dating is a format where projects pitch to a team of 3 judges who then follow up with various questions. Their goal is to assess how suitable your project is for the money they are giving away but also how would actually receiving an award help the project. You do get guidance how to prepare and what sort of information the judges are looking for. However you have no idea who the other participants are and who are you competing against! All you have is a 15 minutes slot where you have to give the best of you and hope it is enough.

Afterwards we reunited together, did even more walking, played the SPACESHIP at Let Me Out escape room and finished with a mandatory team dinner in the hearth of Brussels.

Following an internal selection process and due diligence we finally received the award. $10,000 for open source!

As a side note we also got to know who the other winners are, which can be seen from Open Source Speed Dating records: F-Droid, ossia, MNT Research GmbH and Kiwi TCMS!

We’re giving all of it to our community

All money from the Kiwi TCMS Collective will be going towards funding development tasks. Like Alex told the judges - this will help us enable more hands working on Kiwi TCMS and complete pending work faster. Stay tuned for our bounty program announcement!

Happy testing!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 8.1!

IMPORTANT: this is a small security and improvement release which also includes several bug fixes, internal refactoring and updated translations. You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  fbb363af2d90    557 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb-103-centos7
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

# starting from an older Kiwi TCMS version
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
edit docker-compose.yml to use kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate
# repeat until you have reached latest

Hello testers, you can catch-up with your favorite open source test case management system during the month of March. Here's a list of events we are going to:

• March 14 - QA: Challenge Accepted, Sofia where we will have an info booth. You will get a 15% community discount if you email tickets@qachallengeaccepted.com and mention this blog post
• March 19-21 - OpenTechSummit, Singapore - aka FOSS ASIA summit:
  • Kiwi TCMS exhibition booth - 3 days
  • How to write pylint plugins for fun & profit workshop on March 19th
  • Testing [for] security [in] open source presentation on March 21st

To claim a free Community Standard Ticket use code atodorov. First 5 tickets only! For a 25% discount use code fossasia-speaker. For a 25% discount use code exhibitor-friends - applies only to Community Standard Ticket.

• March 27-28 - TestingStage, Kiev where Alex will present his Static analysis as a test tool session. You can also claim 15% ticket discount by using promo-code AlexanderTodorov
• April 1-2 - TestCon Moscow where Alex will present the Static analysis as a test tool again

Original plan was to visit OpenTest Con, Beijing between March 30-31 which has now been cancelled! The new plan is to stay 2-3 more days in Kiev and join some meetups if available.

Feel free to ping us at @KiwiTCMS or look for the kiwi bird logo and come to say hi. Happy testing!

Hello testers, this is the story of how our team is not taking part of the "QA of the year" contest organized by the QA: Challenge Accepted conference despite being nominated by Alex. In collaboration with Peter Sabev (organizer) we've managed to figure out what happened:

• On Nov 17th Alex nominated the Kiwi TCMS team for the award
• Last week Alex discovered our team is not listed on the voting page
• Then Peter told us he's not seen any nomination related to Kiwi TCMS at all which made everything feel even stranger
• We've managed to dig out browser history from November and it clearly shows the nomination form was submitted correctly
• It was even possible to load the confirmation URL and edit the submission
• Upon second submission the nomination was clearly visible on the other side, Peter confirmed this

Then after a few days we've got word back - Peter had figured out what happened. Apparently the same Google form has been opened on 2 different computers and one of them overwrote the existing submissions.

This kind of issue can be avoided by employing the following measures:

• Make the submission results public so that everyone can verify their nomination is indeed present on the list. It does take away anonymity and can also expose personal information like email/phone/employer. ID, name and submission time-stamp however will be enough
• History of edits could also be exposed publicly for extra safety
• Turn on some sort of overwrite protection similar to what you have for git branches. At the very least have a warning before allowing data overwrite
• Turn on email confirmation - the existing form didn't have this enabled
• On our side: double check submission has been received - will put more pressure on the organizing team

Sadly the issue was discovered after the submission deadline has ended so Kiwi TCMS can't participate in this year's contest. We wish the rest of the finalists best of luck and we're going to see you at QA: Challenge Accepted next month.

Happy testing!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 8.0!

IMPORTANT: this is a major release which includes important database and API changes, several improvements and bug fixes. Multiple API methods are now incompatible with older releases and extra caution needs to be applied when upgrading via docker-compose.yml because newer MariaDB versions are breaking direct upgrades from existing installations!

You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  71a55e353da2    557 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb-103-centos7
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

# starting from an older Kiwi TCMS version
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
edit docker-compose.yml to use kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate
# repeat until you have reached latest

Hello testers, I have to admit that I made a rookie mistake and deleted the entire email database for the Kiwi TCMS newsletter! And of course we didn't have a backup of this database :-(. Please re-subscribe here and read below if you are interested to know what happened.

Last week, while exploring how to cancel active subscriptions for our deprecated GitHub Marketplace listing I found there is no way to cancel those programatically. So I've compiled a list of email addresses and decided to send subscribers an email asking them to cancel their subscriptions.

For this purpose I decided to import the contacts into Mailchimp because it gives you a better interface to design the actual message, include images in the message body, preview and test the message before it is sent! The import of addresses went fine, new addresses were tagged appropriately to separate them from the rest of the newsletter audience but they were not subscribed to receive emails automatically.

I selected "non-subscribed" option when importing as a second barrier to accidentally emailing people who do not want to receive regular news from us! However it turned out Mailchimp can't send messages to non-subscribed addresses! Maybe that's part of their attempts to be GDPR compliant.

So I decided to delete the freshly imported addresses, import them again and this time tag + subscribe them during the import! When selecting the addresses for deletion I am 99% confident I did filter them by tag first and then selected DELETE! And the entire contacts list was gone!

I've also contacted Mailchimp immediately to ask whether or not the addresses can be restored. Unfortunately they are trying to be super GDPR compliant and claim they don't have this information into their system anymore. And in this particular case we've been relying on the vendor to keep backups on their end so didn't even think about trying to backup this database!

For users who have accounts at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org we do have their email addresses but we're not going to automatically re-subscribe them. We've stopped auto-subscribing 2 years ago and also there's no way of telling which addresses were on the list in the first hand.

Please re-subscribe here and I promise we're going to start backing up the newsletter database as well.

Thank you!

Hello testers as we've stated previously Kiwi TCMS has migrated to a new GitHub backend. The previous OAuth application with ID e45b09369720518e1fc3 has been deprecated.

OAuth tokens for this application have been revoked and you should have received an email notification from GitHub about this.

If you still have an active Marketplace listing we kindly ask you to cancel it until we're able to deploy the improved integration on GitHub Marketplace again.

Thank you!

Hello testers, the Kiwi TCMS team sat down together last week and talked about what we feel is important for us during the upcoming year. This blog post outlines our roadmap for 2020!

Project sustainability

The big goal towards which we are striving is to turn Kiwi TCMS into a sustainable open source project. For now this means several key areas:

1) Team
2) Technical
3) Community

Team

Right now we have a core team with 6 newcomers on-boarding. Engineering performance is all over the place with some people contributing too much while others contributing too little. More importantly there is no consistent pace of contributions which makes planning timely completion of technical tasks impossible.

At the moment we do operate as a bunch of disconnected people who happen to talk to each other from time to time.

We are going to adjust our internal processes and how we on-board new members. In fact we did our first "scrum-like" meeting this week and agreed to change our existing practice and strive to become better as a team!

Goal: to have a cohesive team at the end of the year which operates with a predictable capacity.

Goal: 1 PR/week/person as broad measure of individual performance.

Technical

The areas shown on the picture above will receive more priority.

Goal: complete remaining Telemetry features.

Goal: complete bug-tracker integration milestone.

Goal: all pylint issues resolved.

Goal: migrate all remaining legacy templates to Patternfly UI. See patternfly-migration milestone.

Goal: where FE sends AJAX requests to BE views replace with JSON RPC API instead.

Extra: start tackling the JavaScript mess that we have. This depends and is related to Patternfly migration and overall refactoring.

Extra: make it easier for downstream installations to extend and override parts of Kiwi TCMS in order for users to adjust the system to their own needs. The system is pretty flexible as-is but there have been requests, both online and offline, to provide some extra features! We'll start looking into them, likely making partial progress in the next 12 months.

Community

Last year Kiwi TCMS had massive success at every single conference that we've been to. Both project and team have been well received. While we are going to continue being part of various communities around the world we are trying to limit extensive travel and focus on functionality and partnerships which will increase Kiwi TCMS eco-system, make the project even more popular and drive further adoption!

Goal: extended GitHub integration via kiwitcms-github-app plugin.

Goal: release the following test automation framework plugins for Kiwi TCMS:

• PHPUnit plugin
• py.test plugin
• TestNG plugin
• Jenkins plugin
• Robot framework plugin
• Django plugin

For more information see test-automation-plugins milestone.

Ongoing: work with our partners from the proprietary and open source worlds. This is hard to quantify and lots of it doesn't actually depend on the team. However we are continuing to talk to them regularly. Expect new feedback to become available under GitHub Issues.

Extra: see what we can do about testing productivity! This has always been part of our mission but we have not been able to produce anything worth sharing. We do have ideas in this space but we are generally looking for partnerships and collaborations. It is very likely that there will not be very much progress on this front because it is hard to define it properly :-(.

Summary

At the end of the day most of these goals compliment each other and help drive all of them to completion. Many of the still on-boarding people have expressed desire to improve their Python & Django skills. Working to resolve issues in the above specific areas will give them this opportunity! I expect they will show good progress on their respective tasks so we can write more about them on this blog.

Happy testing!

We're happy to announce Kiwi TCMS version 7.3!

IMPORTANT: this is a critical security update for CVE-2019-19844: Potential account hijack via password reset form!

Also migrates to Django 3.0 and includes several other improvement and bug-fixes!

You can explore everything at https://public.tenant.kiwitcms.org!

Supported upgrade paths:

5.3   (or older) -> 5.3.1
5.3.1 (or newer) -> 6.0.1
6.0.1            -> 6.1
6.1              -> 6.1.1
6.1.1            -> 6.2 (or newer)

Docker images:

kiwitcms/kiwi       latest  4026ee62e488    556 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.2     7870085ad415    957 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1.1   49fa42ddfe4d    955 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.1     b559123d25b0    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       6.0.1   87b24d94197d    970 MB
kiwitcms/kiwi       5.3.1   a420465852be    976 MB

cd path/containing/docker-compose/
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi
docker pull centos/mariadb
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate

# starting from an older Kiwi TCMS version
docker-compose down
docker pull kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
edit docker-compose.yml to use kiwitcms/kiwi:<next_upgrade_version>
docker-compose up -d
docker exec -it kiwi_web /Kiwi/manage.py migrate
# repeat until you have reached latest