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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: GNAT Field Test scope (was SGI GNAT Question)
Date: 1999/03/05
Message-ID: <1999Mar5.072922.1@eisner>#1/1
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Date: 1999-03-05T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <36DFA6FB.D3A2AD84@spam.com>, SpamSpamSpam <spam@spam.com> writes:

> Strange that you inflict your "Beta" versions exclusively on your paying
> customers. I think the success of open source has been based on public
> releases feeding back to the developers bug reports. Having  run a
> GNU/linux system for 3 years, I like many others are use to "feature-rich"
> pre-releases.

Of course none of those paying customers need to use those field test
versions, unless they are waiting for a particular fix.  Having had the
opportunity to field test various software for 20 years now, I know I
only want to participate in such activities when there is a particular
reason -- not just for general purposes.

Field test is just a part of qualifying a new software release.  In
many cases internal target testing is more valuable. Of course ACT is
accepting bug reports all the time, so they already have a lot of feedback
from paying customers and others regarding the general state of affairs.
Presumably they even build regression tests.

Unless you see particular regressions that have been released in GNAT,
it would seem they have enough field test sites already.  Adding more
sites could slow down the process, and if there is no benefit obtained
there is no reason to do it.

Larry Kilgallen