Jay <DISCLAIMER> I'm not intending to speak here for anyone else on the list, the community as a whole, any company with which I may be directly or indirectly associated or any other collection or organisation of people. These are just my opinions, and a couple of quotes where they seemed relevant. I don't believe these have been taken out of context, but if you feel I've misquoted you and/or quoted them in a misleading or otherwise inappropriate manner, please feel free to send down the fire-breathing trout of vengeance to toast me in the pit of eternal torment. </DISCLAIMER>
> I don't know about others, but when 3.51 rolled up I thought that RL was just > polishing a release to replace the faulty one on their Website - the one that > somehow eliminated BayesIt. Although Max's <mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> clearly states that: " It fixes charset issues of the latest 3.5.xx > I had no idea that instead of this ostensible objective RL was going to use me > as an alpha tester for a feature or enhancement that would distort the content > of messages that I transmit. We're talking about <http://www.ritlabs.com/bt/view.php?id=4904>? I'd say this falls under the (admittedly broad) auspices of changes specified by Max in the above-referenced. > Yes, I am a voluntary beta tester, and I know it is risky. I also know that RL > cannot be expected to define precisely each and every possible risk. But does > that mean that RL should not give me any warning regarding changes in > direction of testing and harmful events that are likely to occur? I think not. See above. > And, as a beta tester, am I also obliged to test new features that are only at > an alpha level of development? Again, I think not. ICAM. You're free to choose whichever level of TB suits your current needs. To help you make this decision, RL posts, on a daily basis, all their fixes at <http://www.ritlabs.com/download/files3/the_bat/beta/daily.txt> and in addition posts the change log along with the available beta downloads at <http://www.ritlabs.com/en/tbbeta/index.php?login=yes>. > So I have a fundamental concern here. I believe that the July 6 announcement > of 3.51 on this forum (see below) was entirely misleading. Based on? > This announcement goes beyond carelessness and irresponsibility. I hesitate to > use terms like criminal neglect, but I believe a case could be made in such a > direction. I'd be wary of the ethical standing of any lawyer who would tell you so. The software is clearly labelled as not ready for public consumption and, as such, not guaranteed as absolutely stable. We all use the software on that basis and with full awareness of those risks. > Many times and many people have asked RL for a roadmap. We never seem to get > that roadmap - at least not in advance of any journey. I draw your attention to 9Val's <mid:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> in which, among other things, he clearly informed us of the following: " We are taking course to not-fixed-date releases, which means no " deadlines and no rush. Only approved by your responses versions will " be named releases. " Currently main directions of TB! development are: " - IMAP " - Unicode support " - HTML editor improvements " - Customization " - Bug-fixes As for whether we, as beta testers, are even entitled to advance notice of RL's internal business priorities, I firmly believe that we're not. Of course, we need to know what we're testing when it's released to us, and this information is, as I've already mentioned, freely available at the following locations: <http://www.ritlabs.com/download/files3/the_bat/beta/daily.txt> <http://www.ritlabs.com/en/tbbeta/index.php?login=yes>. > Many times and many people have asked RL to distinguish between alpha testing > and beta testing, in particular to do more and better in-house testing before > distributing a so-called "beta release to this community. How would one quantify "more" and "better" in this context. I'm aware that testing occurs; I'm unaware of the specific methodology. Perhaps you have particular recommendations? > Many times and many people have complained about broken promises in respect to > development of features and direction of testing. It's true that many people have complained. It's also true that RL are working on three major areas of concern: IMAP, Unicode and the UI - all of which are very complex. These won't be fixed in a day, but the direction seems clear enough. Now, don't get me wrong: <http://www.ritlabs.com/bt/view.php?id=4904> is a very annoying bug. Considering I'm the one who raised it, I'd be the last to claim otherwise. Occurrences are random, however, and clearly difficult to track down. The more we can help RL out on this one, the more sooner our typed characters will stop abandonning us in favour of a life in some unknown plain of existence. As far as miscommunication is concerned, I'm gratified to note, BTW, that the dropped-characters bug is generating so much interest. Some of the negative responses WRT the priority of fixing the RTV-dropped-smileys issue (another very important source of miscommunication, as we all found out a few weeks ago) had led me to wonder whether miscommunication was a subject which held no interest for some of us. On the subject of directions and apparent directions, I can easily see how a project as complex as TB might seem, to the uninitiated, to be straying from its stated course. But seeming, from my understanding, is very much at the heart of this matter. RL have multiple programmers, and only one will, in most cases, be working with a given bug at any given time. This is quite reasonable. Following on from this, it's also reasonable to suppose that other programmers may fix other bugs before, say, <http://www.ritlabs.com/bt/view.php?id=4904>, is finally trapped and dispatched. So we might easily find ourselves in a situation where many (probably simpler) problems have been dealt with - even released for beta testing - whilst other solutions to other (usually more complex) problems are still WIP. > Before I continue testing RL products, not to speak of buying RL products, I > want to know whether RL has any ethics, any moral scruples, that take > precedence over the acquisition of euros. Discussing morals and scruples is too hot a topic for me here, but what I will say is that, from a purely financial POV, it's highly unlikely that RL wishes to annoy its users - much less those who so generously donate their time as beta testers. They want a good product as much as we all do, and I have no doubt that this is what they're working towards. -- Groetjes Natasha The Bat! 3.51.4 Pro on Windows XP Pro 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 2 ________________________________________________________ Current beta is 3.51.4 | 'Using TBBETA' information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html IMPORTANT: To register as a Beta tester, use this link first - http://www.ritlabs.com/en/partners/testers/
