How do you give permission to a database in SQL server to a QA or someone who wants to have read only access?
In SQL server 2008, if you want to give read only access to the database for a person, do the following steps

1. Create a new login which is going to have read only access to the database
Right click and click on New Login

2. Add the users from Active Directory

3. Click on User Mapping and Select the database which you wan to give read access below Users Mapped to this login:
and select Database Role membership as public and db_datareader

Above setup will allow the users to have database reader access to SQL server