Sat, 18 Feb 1995 06:18:16 +0100
|
Trish,
The procedures for the NT and unix betas were radically different. For
the unix betas, the bulk of the people who applied where individuals I
had known for years, most of whom I had already met in person. I knew
they could be trusted, and they were all from the academic sector.
Finally, it was a small group of people. So, we never laid down any
formal rule about the beta. We just did it, and there was no problem.
For the NT version most of the people were unknown to me, and many were
not from the academic sector. Some in fact were software vendors. We felt
it would not be a good idea to do everything informally. So we wrote a
formal document with the rules to be respected in order to be included in
the beta. By using the license key, you agreed to these rules. Nothing
was put in writing, but the conditions were stated quite clearly, and
they included the standard "can't say anything in public good or bad
until L-Soft breaks the news". You need this kind of rules because
naturally there are going to be problems during the beta and you don't
want people saying in public "I'm trying the brand new NT LISTSERV and
boy, is it a piece of rubbish!" You also don't want people to mention
features that you may later decide not to release because of some problem
that you can't solve. In fact you don't want people to mention anything
in public, period. There's no need to make public comments when you're
testing new software. This is a standard clause that I've seen in all the
betas I've participated in. In fact most of them say that you can't even
state that you're testing the new software.
It's the same with the prices. As I said, we're working on a radically
different pricing policy for NT. Some beta sites needed the software
right now so we decided to sell it to them at the same prices as the VMS
version. So in other words the price list is still in beta and we
positively didn't want people making the kind of comment Laurence made.
We know PC people expect different pricing policies and we're working on
that. What he complained about, even setting aside the gross
inaccuracies, is a price list that we know needs to be fixed and on which
we therefore don't want to be judged, just as we don't want our new
products to be judged on unfinished versions that aren't released.
Eric
|
|
|