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

Accountability

[fembots]

Didn't Google start all this?

The main thing is, if something breaks, the company just puts its hands up and says "opps, sorry it's a Beta", and I bet there will still be plenty of users (businesses) who are willing try them.

In addition to the accountability shift, companies can roll out patches in a more timely fashion. With beta-security-patch, MS is free to distribute patches to plug holes even on a daily basis.

Re:Accountability

[bmw]

At least Google's beta stuff actually *works*

You can't even say that about Microsoft's production software let alone beta software.

Re:Accountability

[NeoSkandranon]

if something breaks, the company just puts its hands up and says "opps, sorry..."

Doesn't Microsoft (and indeed most software comapnies) do that with *all* their products?

Re:Accountability

[RevDobbs]

My first reaction was "I think what Bill G is really saying is 'our realeses suck ass anyway, just buck up and pay to be a beta tester'." But after readting the article:

...Microsoft will release updates every six to eight weeks until the product is finished, said Tom Rizzo, director of product management for SQL Server.

...Because of the change in the license and the quality of the code, Microsoft expects 50,000 customers to move production applications onto the beta versions of Visual Studio 2005 and the .Net Framework, the software needed to run applications.

Oh, I get it... five years ago every body signed annual licence contracts, paid out the whazoo to get the next version 'free', but the next versions never came out. So now we have a new license where you get to spend a lot of money, and this time you really really will get some updates!

Re:Accountability

[ergo98]

The difference is that Google isn't selling license of it's beta products.

Where, exactly, is Microsoft selling licenses?

This sort of story should have been declined by the editors because it is exactly what makes Slashdot bad- It's a bunch of inflammatory pseudo-facts taken out of context and incorrectly presented to get the anti-M$ minions riles up so they can spread the FUD far and wide.

In reality Microsoft heavily discourages use of the beta software for production, but they realize that that...

1. A lot of customers really like the new features, and for that internal site they're will to take the stability hit if it lets them use master pages and some of the other new features. For many firms the stability and API insecurity is worth the risk. We're all professionals, right?
2. Those customers were going to do it anyway

Due to this, they make you agree to a Go Live License that makes very sure that you realize that you're working with a beta, and presumably that you've tested your product thoroughly to ensure it meets the stability and security requirements for your product - it's your responsibility.

One other note - I realize I'm not going to convince anyone in this crowd, however Microsoft's beta 2 products have been of remarkably high quality over the past several years. I'm sure I'll get the standard don't-threaten-my-illusion troll mods, however VS.Net 2005 beta 2 has a stability and quality level equalling or surpassing most or all of its competitors, on any platform.

Re:Accountability

[coopex]

I heartly agree. Windows 3.11 was pretty crappy, and 95/98 weren't that much better, but since switching to an NT core for 2000 and XP I've had absolutely no complaints with their OSs. Even using badly written software that doesn't properly deallocate memory, and generally running far too many programs at one, I consistently get uptimes of over a week, which is more than enough for anyone not running a server or doing some heavy duty computations.

Re:Accountability

[svoid]

I have been using VS 2005 beta 2 for my day to day work for about a month now. It is functional, but I crash half a dozen times a day. There particularly seems to be problems with the code parsing in header files. I've noticed that if I start a method definition and stop midway through the line of code, after a second or so the parser will come alive, choke and die. I'm tempted to send the crash report to microsoft, because I believe in being an active beta participant, but I'm not really comfortable sending dumps of all of my open file buffers to Microsoft. I guess that the moral of the story is that unless you get some perverse thrill out of using bleeding edge pre-release software (like I do), then No, this software is not really ready for production use.

There are some very nice improvements in the new version though. One of my favorites is the visibility of data in the debugger. When you hover over a variable in the debugger, the popup tooltip is now interactive so that you can drill into structures or popup memory windows directly from the tooltip without have to add a watch variable.

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

Microsoft also announced

[Anonymous Coward]

That un-announced future applications such as SQL Server 2010 were so "awesome" and "full of stuff you need" that they'll be licensing them now, before they've actually started work on them.

spyware beta

[towaz]

I wish they would just hurry up and push windows antispyware down with windows update. I know its not the best out; but it would stop 90% of support calls because some idiot has a pr0n dialer.

I agree...

[bogaboga]

Just look at Google's email service (still in beta). It works like a charm. The same applied to Adobe's Linux PDF reader...even the [Linux] kernel itself, in most cases works, without any serious problems.

Well...

[composer777]

At least they are finally admitting that it's beta quality.

Interesting day...

[goMac2500]

First root is completely safe, and now beta software is fine for production environments?

This should read...

[TedTschopp]

Well, normally in the past we would have released it by now, but becuase you are always complaining about security, the piece of crap is caught in a security review, and marketing is getting worried that we won't ship on time. So here have at it, and we told you so.

Ted

Re:Google too

[cd_serek]

I think that pretty much goes for every software in development. The BETA is only a phase of programming. And it is not clearly defined. IMHO, all softwares remains in beta stages until they are abandoned. This is because bug-fixing and feature-adding are on-going processes, and are never fully completed.

Well, before we get a little crazy here...

[ndykman]

Basically, Microsoft is allowing customers, if they so choose, to develop production systems using the beta software. If they want to, and you think it's a good idea, insert usual don't come crying to us if your computer exploded boilerplate here.

The difference is that Microsoft hasn't usually allowed beta software to be used in production usage at all. They only licensed it for test usage, which, frankly, I'm sure most people were just fine with.

So, Microsoft is saying, well, heck, if you really want to, sign this piece paper (see disclamier list, etc, etc.) and enjoy.

I'd be surprised if this really had any impact, but it's interesting marketing.

Nothing new here.

[Ridge]

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

How much do it cost?

[ShaniaTwain]

Did you pay for any of them there google betas? cause I sure didn't, and if you did some varmint mighta ripped you off.

I also reckon you might want your database a tad bit more stable than you want your nifty little search engine doo-dad.

Re:How much do it cost?

[RonnyJ]

Did you pay for any of them there google betas?

I don't think the price is the issue - people do have a choice not to buy/sign-up for a beta product.

It's up to the consumer if they want to risk using a beta product (and thousands of people choose to 'risk' their e-mail with the GMail beta).

Re:How much do it cost?

[mingot]

Um, and the betas for VS.NET 2005 are also free (as in gratis). The only thing that has changed here is that MS is actually telling developers they can release software written with the beta versions in production environments.

Now I can't understand why anyone would actually WANT to do this, but all they did was give people the option.

Re:Heh. Not a good idea...

[bmw]

Their language products have been pretty decent of late.

Perhaps. I'm willing to give you that... but a SQL server? Yikes. I think I'll hold off for the final release... and then a round or two of patches, just to be safe ;-)

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/

Even better...

[Eric_Cartman_South_P]

If you want the features in a Microsoft Beta product, you can usually get them in production quality over here -> www.apple.com

Read your EULA:

[Truth_Quark]

Microsoft has never accepted any accountablilty.

And never will. Imagine the liability if they accepted responsibility for the work lost to a crash, or time spent finding a work-around for their bugs?

It's make 5 million euros a day look postively mild!

I'm confused....

[ShieldW0lf]

Are we still supposed to wait for SP2, or does this mean that SP1 is the one that will be ready for production work?

Re:I'm confused....

[dgatwood]

I'm confused, too. Wasn't April Fool's Day almost three weeks ago?

• Root is safe.
• Beta software good enough for production use

What's next? "Boy eats own head"?

Re:I'm confused....

[sharkey]

What's next?

• Slashdot uses valid markup and CSS
• CmdrTaco posts front-page story that hasn't been posted before
• JonKatz receives Pulitzer Prize

Re:Heh. Not a good idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is a Microsoft beta less credible than open source 0.87 alpha 'releases', which tend to find their way into many a Linux distribution.??? ;-)

Its just fine

[Grip3n]

I like Microsoft as much as most people here, but this move doesn't really make me think "oooOOoo...so evil". Look at the Linux world! So much out there is plainly Beta, but we all still use it. How many of us were using Firefox when it was still in Beta? How about any other program? There are tons out there, I would assume half my linux box is all beta =)

So why is it so terrible when Microsoft mimics Linux? They realize that some people are willing to take the risks, so why not let them? It increases the testing base, people are happy, if something blew up they knew the consequences. Really there's not too much of a downside to this, as any linux developer will attest.

I won't be part of any MS bashing on this move.

Beta Software Good Enough for Production Use

[10scjed]

That explains all those holes, turns out their stuff has been beta all this time...
kinda weird to announce that 15-20 years after the fact.

Re:Soo...

[Eric Smith]

If I program something in Visual Studio 05, and there is a beta bug in it and my enterprise server app with 100000 customers fails, can I sue M$?

Yes. The real question is whether you can win the suit and collect damages. The EULA you clicked on probably said that you can't. But did you actually read the EULA? And is it enforceable?

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).

Microsoft Business Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Release Beta quality Software
2. Get people to Pay You to do their QA for them - ON PRODUCTION SYSTEMS !!!
3. Profit!

Don't mod me as funny, because this joke microsoft's pulling on its customers is not funny at all.

Re:If it compiles

[Un pobre guey]

Here are some working definitions:

Alpha - Program compiles without errors, and can start.

Early Beta -Program can run for several minutes without crashing or doing something really bad.

Beta - Program can run for a while, and won't lock up the system if left running overnight.

RC1 - Program can be used to complete modest tasks, and save the data. Data can even be reloaded in another session.

RC2 - You have to know how to crash it. Otherwise it seems to be able to run for hours.

Version 1 - The program only crashes or screws up when you start pushing it to its limits, such as opening lots of files, using many of its features in a single session or using them repeatedly, or when you demo it to stockholders.

SP1 - Fixes most of the deluge of bugs that came in after Version 1

SP2 -Now only obscure and really difficult to resolve bugs exist. The damn thing actually works.

SP3 - You can actually get lots of work done, and user error far surpasses program error in frequency of screw-ups.

Re:Heh. Not a good idea...

[mingot]

I'm not bill g and don't work at microsoft, but I'll wager my left testicle that the backlash from them breaking *every* vb app with a service pack or security update would be so violent and sudden that it simply won't happen. You have (or you may) no idea about the sheer volume of legacy custom code floating around out there that was written in VB. The idea that they would actually break all of that is nothing but the wet dream of a thousand open source zealots wanting to chirp "I told you so" over and over. Ain't gonna happen.

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.

Perpetual Beta

[JoaoPinheiro]

Wait a minute... But aren't all Microsoft products released under a beta status? I mean... Just look at the crashes! Whenever a Microsoft product is reaching a semi-final status (usually SP2 or SP3), they just release a new product or OS (in beta status, obviously) to replace the previous one.

It's kind of like this:
Microsoft Final = Beta
Microsoft Beta = Alpha
Microsoft Alpha = Segmentation Fault.

gmail

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's up to the consumer if they want to risk using a beta product (and thousands of people choose to 'risk' their e-mail with the GMail beta).

In all fairness, the only thing still "beta" about gmail is its business model.

Who you gonna call?

[fizban]

Root is safe.
Beta is production.
Cats and Dogs, living together.
Mass hysteria, people!