🚀 go-pugleaf

: >Michael Eilers (eilersm@aruba.ccit.arizona.edu) wrote:
: >: [...]
: >: hour!"  If any other company (let's use Adobe as an example) released a
: >: piece of software so buggy, even with a "b" on the end of the name, they
: >: would be chased into the fire--but not beloved Netscape.
: >
Actually, I worked at one of MS Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95  
beta test sites.  They were more buggy than Netscape 2.0b is, and they 
were on a single platform!  When you consider the number of things that
Netscape can conflict with, it's a wonder as few people have problems
with it as they do.  I might also point out that Microsoft 
has people BEGGING to beta-test their software.  Software that randomly 
wiped your hard drive and deleted your FAT!  Netscape has a release 
version, and its beta versions.  No one is being forced to beta-test for 
them, they're just attracted by the same thing that attracts people to 
betas...new software with new features.

Rule one:  you never put a beta on your machine without backing it up.  
If you can't or won't, then you shouldn't load it, or shouldn't 
complain.  I believe you have a valid point that Netscape's motives are 
far from altruistic.  I just don't think that this relates to the betas 
being contemptable.


Brendan McKay wrote:
: All that would be perfectly ok, except that 2.0b2 is NOWHERE NEAR
: READY for public beta testing.  It has a large number of really obvious
: bugs.  That's not just a nuisance, it is dangerous.  The third time
[snip]
: (I recovered almost everything, no thanks to Netscape Inc.)  If it
: was something real obscure that I was trying to do, then I could
: think "such is life and beta releases", but it wasn't.  It was just
: normal stuff that Netscape should have tested themselves.  They think 

This sounds more like your personal interpetation of what Beta testing 
is, and what you thought Netscape was offering.  A laundry list of 
"Netscape is not responsible for..." should have set off warning bells in 
your head.  What do you consider 'normal stuff'?  Is your installation 
vanilla, or do you have some utilities, a startup sound, some sharware 
apps, etc., etc.

There are too many variables in beta-testing for this sort of thing NOT 
to happen.  It's the point of beta-testing.  I saw these problems when we 
beta-tested various versions of Windows.  You might point out that these 
weren't 'public' beta-tests, but I disagree.  They were still given to a 
widely diverse user base that the producer had no control over, with no 
set specification.

And as far as I can recall, before Netscape, no major applications that 
were this widespread received this kind of public testing.  While I 
sympathize with the problems you had (and I've had some myself), I think 
you're letting you're bad experience color your judgement of the policy 
overall. 

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