2007-Jun-5 - Cross-version test cases management problem

Our product had version 6.0, then 6.01, and now 6.02. And for each version, we have Windows release and Linux release. So when it comes to test cases management, it is kind of messy. 

Currently in our test case management system, we have 4 suites for 6.0 Windows, 6.0 Linux, 6.01 Windows, and 6.02 Windows  respectively. But every time when we execute the cases, say for 6.02 Linux version, we have to check out the cases from 6.0 Linux, 6.01 Windows, and 6.02 Windows.

It's not that simple as it seems because although the features between Linux version and Windows version are nearly the same, it has about 10% cases that should have different behavior, action, expected result, or even totally inapplicable; And old features from older versions have about 1~2% changes when they are upgraded to newer version. So when the QAs execute the test cases, they actually have another set of cases in their mind, where they assume applicable steps and expected results. However they never update the cases which actually are outdated for new version or different platform.

If I would do the project again, I would rather either

1. Put all the cases from different versions to only one suite, distinguishing them by adding a field for version number and platform type.

or

2. Seperate the test suites by versions and platforms, but copy the whole set of cases from older version to the new version suite, so that modification on the new version test cases would not have impact on the old version's.

and

3. For each version / platform test, switch the test owner of each module, so that the whole team can get the overall idea of the product and also enhance the test cases quality.