Interview with Mieke Gevers

[Mieke] Since the workshop is about the performance testing methodology that I’ve developed overtime, mostly I’m seeing people that are novice within the subject or people that are in need of a structured way to set up a performance test. When I started doing performance and load testing, there was no methodology available, which was simple and comprehensive, for me to get started. And I’m looking especially into all the factors that are needed in order to structure the approach and help to setup a performance test. [Mieke] note: see attached document.

[Mieke] Open Source and the open source community is becoming important to everyone. Either budget and/or the company strategy towards the use of open source tools could be the reason for small & large companies to look at this area. To my feeling, Free Test is an open conference and will provide the attendees a knowledge transfer from which everyone can benefit.

[Mieke] One of the reasons could be: to be on top of the next generation of evolution in Testing. Free Test is, to my knowledge, the only conference which topics are all about the open source era. It would be a pity not to grasp the changing in test approaches, using the open source tools, as they are occurring now.

[Mieke] Well, here I can give a simple answer – I hope J using tools in general implies the acquisition of the tools, a learning curve, support, enhancements, building up know-how … And this applies also to testing tools. For free tools, the cost of acquisition is zero, but there is a cost to all the other parts that might be the same, slightly higher or even very high depending on the tool, project, organisation,.. So when you look at “free tools” you have to bear in mind that other costs can be of a significant order. And if you ask the question why ‘Free Test’ is not for free... If I’m allowed to compare, most conferences are being sponsored by companies that have an interest in selling and market their tools, services,… .Free Test is about Open Source and I’m guessing, it will be hard to find sponsors, no? So, the venue, organisation, do have a price tag. Note: I’m only aware of one conference that is free, but with a limit of attendees and it is only about agile testing, and it is fully sponsored.

[Mieke] My feeling is that in the future open source tools will be used together with commercial tools – complementary to each other and enhancing and or addressing the company’s quality controls There are 2 mayor categories of tools, the fully free ones and the ones that are a slim or limited version of a commercial tool. (More and more vendors are already opening up their products and creating open source projects.) The advantage of free tools is that there is a pool of tools available to you and they can address a specific quality control need that you are facing. Open Source tools benefit from the community extending the tools with their know-how and enhancements. So its evolution & development is rather based on a specific need, rather than on an opportunity of market driven approach from a tool manufacturer. The tools can also be easily integrated with other tools, open source and commercial ones – via open API’s (Application Program interfaces). This gives companies the flexibility to create their own tool-pallet according to their specific needs.