The GeoServer community is happy to announce the formation of an official Testing Team.

The Testing Team is a set of users and developers that will install and run impending GeoServer releases prior to their official distribution. The purpose is to provide real-world testing, something that developers alone can not provide.

Approximately once a month, a development freeze will be called and the Testing Team will install and run the most recent nightly build. Each tester in the team will use GeoServer in his or her unique environment and will check that important features are working as expected, and that regressions (features that used to work but now do not) have not appeared, with developers standing by to fix any regressions that may be uncovered. For example, someone will test that uDig still works against the GeoServer releases, someone else will test against ArcSDE, some will test for performance, and so on.

Are you interested? **Everybody can participate in the testing process. No development skills are required. ** All you have to do is to read the Official Testing Team proposal, drop in on the GeoServer developer mailing list (yes, even if you’re not a developer), introduce yourself and your desire to participate.

We want you to know that as development on GeoServer continues, we are trying to make sure that we are fulfilling the needs of the community. We want to make upgrading a seamless, hassle-free experience, and we feel that creating a team of testers is the best way to ensure this. The more people who join our team, the better GeoServer will become.

Let’s improve GeoServer together! Join us!