Slashdot Mirror
Has Google Redefined Beta?
netbuzz writes "Someone finally took the time to do a count of all the Google apps marked 'beta.' And with fully 45% of its products carrying that familiar tag — including 4-year-old Gmail — Google says there's an explanation: Beta doesn't mean to them what it has long meant to the rest of the tech community. 'We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web,' says a company spokesman."
What are we going to call actual beta web software then? Alpha? But then what would we call Alpha software?
I mean, just because you're still adding features to it, doesn't mean that it has to be called beta, does it?
Also, what I quite don't understand is why they would want to call it beta, I mean, it's not like it's got a good cling to it. It just makes it sound like something unstable and unreliable. Google are tryint o get people to buy the premium version of Gmail. Why would someone want to pay for beta-testing something for someone?
--
Champagne should be cold, dry and free.
Alpha: it doesn't work.
Beta: it still doesn't work.
but their spokesperson sure knows what bullshit means.
So, by that logic, every piece of software that can be updated is beta. Windows, Linux, OSX, etc.
I guess it gives them an excuse if their shit don't work.
Can we just tag this "yes" and move on?
Beta means "it may change without warning". With traditional apps you have a choice to upgrade or not, but not with web applications. As long as there is active development then it is essentially a beta. Maybe they should have used a different term, but I think it is useful to have a warning that there may be frequent and substantial changes.
I seem to recall that Stavro Muller intentionally added the Beta label to one of his own restaurants, with catastrophic results.
What a load of BS. Its a matter of liability. By saying that the products are still in 'Beta' they have a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card if there are any problems. Its odd that the G1 phone is tied to using services that are still labelled as beta.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Microsoft redefined "release" to be what we previously called "beta", a long time ago. That's why "Google's 'beta' products like Gmail and Google Docs are about as good as anyone would expect" -- we've been brought to expect software and services which are barely tested. Google is returning to the old meaning and perhaps going a bit further.
Christ, game companies have been using 'beta' as a dodge for shitty demos since Shiny squeezed Messiah out. The fact that the same 'it's just a beta, it'll get better!' promises and pleas have trickled upward and outward is clear indication that gravity itself is in beta, because shit certainly doesn't just flow downhill any more.
Several companies used "beta" to indicate that product is just not supported. For instance ICQ was beta for like 4-5 years? Don't remember exactly.
So nothing new here actually.
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
they've bought it back to what it SHOULD be
No, they haven't.
usable and feature-complete software which is just undergoing stringent testing for subtle defects and bugs
You missed the last part of that, which reads by a limited number of testers.
If an app is delivered to end users, then it's not beta.
Modern software engineering *everywhere* has redefined "beta"... which is why "software engineering" exists only at NASA and a few other such places.
The rest of software "engineers" throw half-ready rubbish over the wall to meet idiotic management's "vision" and "development schedule" and pray that someone else's job will go to India when the self-serving suits at the top decide to go for big bonuses by slashing the payroll.
On the other hand, evolution itself is constant beta, with losers and winners, periodically re-set by catastrophic terrestrial events that wipe out all lawyers.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
All I can say is that we're out of beta: we're releasing on time.
While we wait, if any of you should have a theory of your own, please share with the group.
My theory is that by always having 'beta' next to something, this ensures that anyone who uses their tools will always think they are using the latest and greatest.
Or, maybe they want to remind people of a fish, that swims alone from the crowd with a brilliant display of features.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.
--- Humpty Dumpty
google could redefine a cucumber as a small nocturnal mammal, and the whole world would fall in line. google search is all of our collective recall. it's the 800 pound gorilla of the web. it can make any word mean anything they want it to
call it a "google mind trick"
World: Let us see Gmail move out of beta.
Google: [with a small tweak of the spider] You don't need to see Gmail move out of beta.
World: We don't need to Gmail move out of beta.
Google: Beta does not have the meaning you think it has.
World: Beta does not have the meaning I think it has.
Google: You believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web.
World: I believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web.
Gmail: Move along.
World: Move along... move along.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And they have redefined 'no evil' too.