Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 22:48:16 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: arch@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: arch@FreeBSD.ORG, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Subject: Re: NO MORE '-BETA' Message-ID: <p0501040bb6d8856b0b5d@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <20010316160957.A98966@dragon.nuxi.com> References: <20010316151120.B98051@dragon.nuxi.com> <200103162339.QAA18793@usr07.primenet.com> <20010316160957.A98966@dragon.nuxi.com>
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At 4:09 PM -0800 3/16/01, David O'Brien wrote:
>Uh all other OS's I know of use these same terms -- Beta is
>right before a release, during a time annoying bugs can be
>fixed. Release Candidate is pretty self-explanatory, nor
>did we invent it.
I would say that for most companies, the above is the
"marketing definition" of beta. Ie, it's what the marketing
department would like to claim.
Please note that there are several million computer users
who are very familiar with the following definitions of
'beta', as described in the 'jargon' dictionary:
1. Mostly working, but still under test. Beta releases
are generally made to a group of lucky (or unlucky)
trusted customers.
2. Anything that is new and experimental. "His girlfriend
is in beta" means that he is still testing for
compatibility and reserving judgment.
3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta software is
notoriously buggy).
You may not LIKE those definitions, but those are the most
common meanings that real users pick up from the word "beta".
By the above definitions, there isn't really all THAT much
more "beta" about 4.3-beta than there was in an average day
of 4.2-stable. Note that isn't just that we're using the
word "beta", but that we STOPPED labelling it as "stable".
The problem with claiming that "freebsd's cycle is just like
any other company", is that other companies do NOT have the
equivalent of "stable". When Windows98 went into beta, it
had several million lines of coding changes which had not
been tested on any customers machines. THAT is what they
mean by beta. We mean "there is something of a code-freeze
going on in the life of -stable".
When Windows98 went beta, it meant that Microsoft was within six
months of releasing the real version. We mean we're within four
weeks of it. Apple had their public-beta of MacOS 10 -- last
September. The final candidate will be available in a week.
There are areas where the final release will look and work
quite a bit different than the beta. The difference between
the first day of 4.3-beta and the final 4.3-release is about
two orders of magnitude less dramatic.
I'm not saying these because I'm mad at anyone. Those are just
observations of the real world. That is how "beta" is used.
>So maybe you should have said something to the effect that even
>though 100% of the OSs today have "Betas" the 99% of the user
>population is totally clueless as to these words meanings.
So, we should pander to the 1% of users who are using your
definitions, instead of the 99% of users who are familiar
with the above definitions?
And the benefit would be, .... what????
--
Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.acs.rpi.edu
Senior Systems Programmer or gad@freebsd.org
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute or drosih@rpi.edu
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