MS: Beta Software Good Enough for Production Use

RMX writes "CNet is reporting that Microsoft is starting to license test software for real-world use . In particular, Visual Studio 2005 and the April "community technology preview" of SQL Server 2005 are both supposed to be released sometime in the second half of the year. But Microsoft is claiming the pre-release versions are stable already, so they're licensing the pre-released versions on the grounds that they 'are already suitable for running production business applications.'"

Comments

Nothing new here.

[Ridge]

Microsoft had a go live license for Visual Studio 2002 as well.

Free beta CD

[DigitlDud]

Just FYI, you can order a FREE (no s&h) CD of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/getthebetas/

If you want to distribute programs you make with it, you have to sign the GoLive aggreement here: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/golive/licens e/

Good enough? Try it for yourself

[wahgnube]

Here is a page where you can order a copy of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 for free (as in beer of course).

thats because of pension funds...

[cheekyboy]

Tonnes of pension funds find it easy to invest in MS and keep it safe. But now there are more and more oldies 'expiring' and cashing out to their kiddies spending/credit cards.

Theres not enough current notquitesooldies to keep the funds up and buying the stocks of the kiddies.

Any trade in 'virtual goods' back and forth is just a pyramid scam, todays winners taking from tommorows winners, aslongas theres an increasing amount of new 'suckers'. ie population growth.

This plan falls apart once you have flat population growth.

Its time corporates died and there were 100000s more tiny companies out there.

Re:One born every minute

[captain_craptacular]

RTFA,
No one is paying for shit. Microsofts BETA liscence forbids you from running production servers on beta software. They are simply offering an exemption from this restriction. They are not charging for the software, they are simply letting you go live with the beta software before the production version is ready if you wish to do so. Then, you will buy the production liscence when available (ie when it's released).

Re:One born every minute

[hkb]

Yet another stupid moderation. Someone should probably point out to the parent the fact that the betas are free.

Oh wait, nevermind. I just did.

Re:How much do it cost?

[spideyct]

Did you pay for them there Microsoft betas?

I sure didn't...
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/De fault.aspx

And if your database is so important that you don't want to run it on beta software, then... don't!

Re:Even better...

[pnaro]

Geez ... Oracle, PostgreSQL and others

Microsoft's software is not software.

[rice_burners_suck]

You mean to tell me that beta software made by Microsoft is good enough for production use, when their release versions of software aren't even good enough to print on toilet paper?

Allow me to quote something I posted in a different story a moment ago:

This is what I love most in life: I have just spent the better part of the day trying to get what is otherwise a perfectly good machine, except that it is running software from Microsoft, which renders it less than useless (more on this later), to recognize some stupid printer. Once that was recognized, the aforementioned machine, which, remember, is less than useless, stopped recognizing the network. Then, I had to spend the other better part of the day fixing that. Then, I go on Slashdot, and the first article I see is about how Microsoft is going to release yet another version of their garbage, which they illegally claim is an operating system, under the false advertising rules, in order to make the lives of innocent bystanders like myself even worse than before.

Now about that machine being less than useless. Suppose there is a computer with no operating system on it. That machine is useless, because it cannot accomplish any tasks. Turn it on, and it will immediately halt and produce an error message saying you need to install an operating system. That's pretty useless. But it's much better than a machine running some of the disgusting, reeking, horrible, vomit that Microsoft calls software. Because a machine that contains no operating system performs no task, but it wastes not the time or resources of innocent bystanders such as myself. A machine running the aforementioned filth that I described above as something Microsoft illegally claims is software, does something much worse: Sometimes, it pretends to work, just to get your hopes up. Then, just as you think that maybe, just maybe Microsoft's infinite monkeys pounding away at infinite keyboards didn't do quite an awful job as you thought all your life, the machine proves to you, once again, that it is running software from Microsoft.

Let me repeat again: Microsoft is a horrible, unethical, lying, cheating company. It does nothing except create unnecessary costs for other businesses, unless it destroys those businesses first. I hate Microsoft. I hate everything that comes from that terrible company. Microsoft represents all that is evil, vile, and wicked. And their software is garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, piled upon garbage, et cetera, ad nauseum. Microsoft. Where do you want to waste your day?

Oh, and did I mention that the only reason we have that trash on this computer is that we have no choice? Yup, that's right. There is no open-source alternative to Autocad, a program we must use because our customers demand it. Even programs that can input and output Autocad's crooked file format won't work because they create certain problems. Only Autocad is effective at doing this work. And Autocad only works under Windows, as do most of the other serious CAD/CAM solutions. These companies, for some reason, continue to support Microsoft, and they refuse to create ports for other operating systems, not knowing that just about everybody in this industy to whom I spoke agrees that they would switch to anything else if only Autocad were available for that platform. So here we are, stuck using Windows, years after we decided to phase that trash out and use something that actually works. And then, after a day of completely wasting my time, when I had many, many things on the list that needed to get done, I open Slashdot and see an article about how Microsoft, may the devil curse the souls of everybody who works there, owns stock in Microsoft, or believes that their software is actually good, is going to release yet another version of their trash unto the world.

That pretty much sums it all up.

Re:Accountability

[koreaman]

What is your definition of an "up-to-date window manager" and a "major distro?" Gentoo + fluxbox is noticably much faster than Windows, at least on my box. I'm not a Gentoo ricer nazi, but Fluxbox does make a huge difference.

Re:Accountability

[tokabola]

Well, lets see. When I was looking to see which OS would perform best on my graphics station I used three pieces of software for testing. All three work on both Windows and Linux. They are the GIMP, Blender, and Povray.

These apps performed tasks on average 17 percent faster on Mandrake 10 community edition than they did on Windows. On Gentoo (with only O2 optimizations, not riced out) they performed on average 22 percent faster than Windows XP.

I could probably reduce XP's performance deficit by shutting down the firewall, anti-virus, and other protective wares, but I have an always on connection so it would be pretty stupid to do that. Besides, the Linux distros were tested with the firewall on, as well as some network monitoring daemons, and don't need all the other stuff Windows needs to be reasonably secure.

The tests I used were all based on rendering speeds, which are not dependent on the video card or any drivers, and since I used the same PC (literally, the same box) for all three OS's the speed difference can only be caused by the OS. It was, after all, the only variable.

Therefore, I must call bullshit on your calling bullshit.

Tommy

All very well, but .....

[mcbevin]

I've used last month's release as well as the first beta release, and they are nothing like what I would expect from production software.

Sure theres a _lot_ of nice new stuff in there (a lot of which has been around a while in open and non open source java IDEs), but the releases fully deserve their beta / alpha statuses from my experience.

Microsoft's basic problem is that it's unable to release software at anything like regular intervals. Whereas the MacOS is updated once or twice a year, Microsoft is struggling to release Longhorn after what, 5+ years. Ditto for IE. Visual Studio has also been waiting far longer for an update than its competition. Trying to sell your beta software might sound like a solution to this problem, but its not if the beta software really is only beta quality.

In the internet age, where a year can see immense changes and where the companies pushing those changes are no longer Microsoft, either Microsoft has to speed up its processes or its monopoly is bound to slowly fade.

Re:Microsoft Business Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this even modded insightful?

Google does the same thing and Slashdot doesn't have a problem with it.. and where does it say that Microsoft is charging anyone anything to test their Beta product?.. Oh wait.. it doesn't.. I forgot, it's more fun to criticize Microsoft for spreading fud about linux and then about face and do the same shit..

Link for the clueless:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/golive/