I have consistently used the terms this way, across the projects
(Chandler, Cosmo, hosted service):
Alpha => intended for use inside OSAF, or "dogfood"
Beta => solid enough and with a coherent enough feature set that people
can use it outside of OSAF
As Heikki noted, the use of the term "Beta" is more consistent with a
"Google Beta". In more of a waterfall process "Beta" would imply that
the product is feature complete. We are explicitly choosing *not* to
follow such a waterfall process. One of our assumptions here is that we
want to get the product in front of users well *before* we are feature
complete, as we think we will learn a lot by having people try to use
it. The roadmap and feature set may change in unexpected ways once we
start getting feedback from real users outside of OSAF.
For the desktop, our main goal right now is to get to the point where
people outside of OSAF are using Chandler (Beta). We're currently
targeting March 2007. This does not imply that Chandler will be feature
complete for a 1.0 release in March. We hope to iterate and adjust the
feature set based on what we learn, and have set no target date yet for 1.0.
For Cosmo, the server will need to support the desktop in the same
timeframe, and we hope to have a limited set of UI features that are
solid and useful enough to be used by people outside of OSAF. This set
of features needs to go through an "Alpha" cycle and hit a "Beta" stage
in the same timeframe. (Ted and Priscilla are working on a realistic
plan for Cosmo given those constraints.)
Cosmo's roadmap will likely extend beyond this timeframe, so the
alpha/beta milestone naming scheme for the releases might not make as
much sense.
I'm open to different alternatives on the numbering schemes, but wanted
to set this context for making decisions about release management from here.
Cheers,
Katie
Priscilla Chung wrote:
On Aug 29, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Heikki Toivonen wrote:
What is Cosmo's milestone numbering scheme?
So far there has been a proposal on the Cosmo-dev list to call each
milestone 0.5M1, 0.5M2 etc. though nothing is set yet. Perhaps I was the
only one who was unfamiliar with the use of 'M's, but as Ted pointed
out, it is used in the Eclipse Foundation among other's. If it is widely
used in the development community then I'm fine with it.
Next are the terms alpha and beta. Chandler uses alpha to mark a product
that is usable inside of OSAF. Beta is something we want the public to
give a try; think "Google Beta".
I believe Cosmo is using beta to mean feature complete; can you confirm?
No, I believe the term beta would mean people outside the OSAF
organization will be able to use Cosmo, but it is NOT feature complete.
Opposed to Alpha, which people inside the OSAF organization, everyone
would be encouraged to 'dog-food' Cosmo.
I believe we should unify what alpha and beta mean between the projects.
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