TestLink is the first winner of the BitNami bi-weekly packaging contest. TestLink is a web-based test management application that helps you to manage the QA process. It offers support for test cases, test suites, test plans, test projects, user management and reporting.
Thanks to the community votes, TestLink was selected to be packaged as part of the BitNami Library. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Amazon EC2 images. We hope this will help spread the adoption of TestLink.
Francisco Mancardi, one of the lead TestLink developers was kind enough to answer some questions for those of you who may not be familiar with the project.
1. What is the goal of the TestLink application?
In an ideal world, testing would be a pretty straightforward process. A test team takes the product requirements, writes a test specification document, reviews the tests, and then runs them all for each version of the product. The team is composed of full-time staff, and everyone knows exactly what is expected of them. In practice few organisations have that luxury.
TestLink is a test management application, aimed to simplify the life of QA people. Its goal is to offer features present on commercial-grade applications, while remaining open source.
The purpose of TestLink is to answer questions such as:- For which requirements do we still need to write or update test cases?- Which tests do you want me to run for this version?- How much progress have we made on testing this release?- Which test cases are currently failing, and what are the errors?- On which version was this group of test cases last run, and is it time we ran them again?- And ultimately: is this version of the product fit for release?
2. What are some of the features of TestLink?
Test Case Management, including versioning, Test Case Reuse, Test Step Reuse Requirement Management, with revisions and versions. Bug Tracker System integration (Bugzilla, Mantis, Redmine, Jira, Trac, YouTrack, FogBugz, ...) Test case results can be recorded via XML-RPC API Reports & Charts.
3. Which projects or organizations are using TestLink currently? What
kind of projects do they use it for?
Some organization have publicly announced on www.teamst.org, that they use TestLink, while for others we only know due to mails. The list include:
Philips Lighting (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Jetminds
Mobotix
Gruppo Tesi
Acronis
General Motors Europe
Dolby Laboratories
Samsung India Software Operations
Talend
Texas Instruments Inc
Tata Consulting Services
Openbravo
4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami
packages available for TestLink?
I hope new users will find it easier to get started, mainly through the use of the virtual machine. In addition I hope the visibility TestLink will get, will make its use wider on the Software Development Community.
We are glad TestLink is now part of BitNami. Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest!