Re: [PATCH 0/2] Revert imprudent test changes

Leo Sandoval via Grub-devel
2025-11-20T15:38:14Z

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Thanks Daniel & Glenn.

Sorry for introducing more workload on your hands and impacting the QA
negatively, of course not intended.

Leo

On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 2:44 PM Daniel Kiper <dkiper@net-space.pl> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 19, 2025 at 01:11:33PM -0600, Glenn Washburn wrote:
> > The two commit reverted in this series degrade the GRUB tests and must be
> > reverted. The goal of any testing system for a project should be to find
> > bugs. That goal is not served by reducing test coverage, which is what
> > both of those commits did. Just because some (influential) users have a
> > different objective, such as making the test harness not error so they
> > can check the "GRUB tests pass" box after building, does not mean that
> > GRUB should override the testing goal of the project. It should be fairly
> > obvious when reading the results of the tests that there were issues in
> > running some tests and why the issue occurred. The solution to this is
> > not to pretend there was no issue, and the testing system should not help
> > the user in pretending there was no issue (no matter how much the user
> > would like it). These two reverted commits do just that, among other
> issues.
> > Of course, if the test requirements are so onerous that no one runs the
> > tests, that's also an issue, and patches are welcome to improve this.
> > However, due to the nature of the GRUB project and thus the kind of
> testing
> > it needs, GRUB will always require a complex testing environment. And
> > test coverage should not be sacrificed to simplify this environment.
> >
> > I would also like to add that there is a history of certain large distros
> > submitting patches that are in the (percieved) interests of those distros
> > and not in the interests of the GRUB project or community as a whole.
> > In my estimation, mostly this has been due to ignorance as opposed to
> intent.
> > Regardless, I hope in the future, people working for these distros can
> take
> > off their distro hat and put on a GRUB hat before sending patches.
> Distros
> > contribute a lot of valueable work to GRUB and I would like to continue
> to
> > see high-quality patches that are in the interest of the project as a
> whole.
> >
> > Glenn
> >
> > Glenn Washburn (2):
> > Revert "tests: Skip tests if required tools are not available"
> > Revert "tests: Remove -w param from mkfs.hfsplus command"
>
> Taking into account the cover letter and updated GRUB Developers Manual
> I think these two patches have to be reverted.
>
> So, Reviewed-by: Daniel Kiper <daniel.kiper@oracle.com>...
>
> Daniel
>
>

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