About Beta Testing
From Tallus LLC Wiki
About Beta Testing
Tallus will typically test with either a private (often) or public beta most all new products and significant updates to products before a general release. We have established beta testers that we have worked with that we have a positive experience with. Often, we open up beta testing to new users that agree to the caveots of being a beta tester:
Beta testing is not for everyone!
Testing should be done by individuals that are interested in assisting Tallus develop application updates that are reliable and provide great value. A Beta tester does not have to be highly technical, as the best Beta group is a mix of backgrounds and experience levels to simulate what end users will do.
A beta tester gets to have a voice in the development of a new feature. He / she also gets the latest and greatest to stay "on the cutting edge".
In return, the beta tester is asked to provide details on issues that were found in installation, configuration, in use of the product. The beta tester should install beta level software on a secondary system, so as not to affect their primary control system.
Beta software may or may not ever be finished and released as a production application. There is also less emphasis on timely support that should be expected. The software licenses may lapse in coverage during testing period. Beta users should also be religious about doing backups before installing updates, and expect their system to be less than reliable.
Beta testers agree to keep their systems up to date with the latest Tallus products that affect the beta software. Fore example, for a MainLobby Tallus product, it is most important to test with the latest MLServer3 version and MainLobby 3 Client software.
Like mentioned earlier - beta testing is not for everyone :)
Beta testing Overview (originally authored on xpnews.com)
The software development process consists of several stages. The "pre alpha" stage refers to the time period that ranges from when developers start to write the code until it is more or less "feature complete." During this stage, it's being tested by the developers and different features are being added or removed.
The "alpha" stage comes when most of the features are in place, but the software is still rough around the edges. All of those features may not work yet, and the software generally isn't considered stable enough to risk installing it on a machine that you use for daily productivity. The alpha version is the first version distributed to people outside the group of developers and software engineers whose job it is to develop the software, but it's usually only available to other people within the company or within a limited group.
The beta stage is that period when the software has most of its features working (although not necessarily perfectly) and it is stable enough to be distributed to users outside the company for widespread testing. Often there are private betas first, restricted to selected beta testers, followed by one or more public betas that are available to the general public. As the group of testers expands, the software gets tested on more and more different types of hardware and software configurations, so that problems can be caught and fixed before the Release Candidates (RC) versions that will be the final product unless some large last-minute problem is discovered.
This is a simplified description; within each stage there are typically many "builds," or new compilations of the program that fix bugs or make minor changes. But it's at the public beta stage that most computer users first have the opportunity to get their hands on a new operating system or application. The software vendor may distribute the beta by handing out discs at tech events, or more often puts the beta out on the web for download.
Downloading the beta gives you a chance to get a program for free that may end up costing hundreds or (in the case of server software) even thousands of dollars when it's finally released. Of course, beta software may also be buggy and unstable (although in many cases it's as stable or more stable than some other programs are in final release). Often, too, the beta software will work for only a limited period of time. When it expires, you'll no longer be able to use it. If it's an operating system, you'll need to go back to your old OS or install the final release (or later beta). Usually a beta is set to last until the next beta version or the final release is expected to come out.
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Many people don't seem to understand the purpose of beta software. They install it and then complain that it has bugs. Well, yeah. The reason software vendors release betas is so folks can find the bugs. Half the fun of running beta software is filing the bug reports. So when you find something wrong, that's a good thing; it means you're helping to make the software better when it does hit the shelves.
I've even heard folks whine that when software companies put out betas, they are "expecting us to do their work for them for free." The truth is, no matter how much testing a company does in house, they simply won't encounter all the different creative configurations that you come across out there "in the wild." The beta gives them a chance to observe how the program behaves on your system, which may be unique, and address any issues that appear with that particular combination of hardware and other software.
After all, it's not as if anyone forces you to try out beta software. If you want everything to work perfectly all the time, by all means don't run betas. As a matter of fact, if you want everything to work perfectly all the time, maybe you should just stay away from computers altogether. That's just not the nature of the beast. But if you enjoy trying out new things and don't mind putting up with a few glitches, beta testing can be a lot of fun.
It's also not as if you're paying for the software. Installing a beta is always at least a bit of a gamble. It might run smoothly. It might not install at all. It might work just well enough to be frustrating, providing you a glimpse of a great new world but one that is, for example, silent because there are no drivers available for your sound card. And it might trash your hard drive and delete all your data, too. That's why you should always back up anything you have that's important before you install a beta - or better yet, install the beta on a separate physical computer that's set aside for testing or in a virtual machine environment.