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i was informed that one of my clients was asked by an institution to use their software. my client was asked to get the installation file from the institution’s server and they were having a bit of trouble downloading the thing and asked me to help. from the filename i already knew that it was beta software (it has the word ‘beta’ in the name). i don’t really recommend using beta software in a production environment. the institution did not even inform my client that they were downloading and installing a “test” program. that’s bad bordering on irresponsible.
a little background: creating software programs comes in stages.

1. alpha stage.
   this is the first release of the program. lots of really serious bugs in it. program could hang the computer its running on or worse give errorneous results.
2. beta stage.
   most serious bugs have been corrected but a handful still exists. usable but may not be stable enough for everyday use.
3. gold release (or release candidate).
   around 95% of bugs squashed with only minor corrections needed. stable in a production environment.
4. final release.
   these days the final release usually have very minor bugs in it but not serious enough to give erroneous results. usable and stable for a production environment.

at each stage there’s a testing phase and each may have its own sub versions, i.e. beta 1, beta 2, release candidate 1, release candidate 2, etc. for some really big projects, the beta stage can stretch to years.

and as you can see, beta software is not really ready for primetime. its bound to hang or give buggy results. i strongly discourage its use especially on critical processes in the finance department by a person or persons who are not aware that they’re using a test program.

the only instance where i will give a nod to using beta software is

• if its use is outside of the production/critical business processes
• if the user knows that s/he is using beta software and knows the consequences of using it
• if the user is assigned to be a beta tester for the software
• if the user is a masochistic tech person looking for some grief in his/her spare time.

a pretty good example is microsoft’s anti-spyware program (in beta). apparently, a recent update to the program flags norton anti-virus as a password-stealing program and asks the user to remove it. duh. and that’s microsoft already. double-duh.

yes, there are some beta programs that are pretty usable but if you read the license it also says that the author of the program is not liable for anything that results in the use of the program be it bad or good.

so, unless you know what you’re doing (or are looking for some grief) do not, as in don’t, use beta software.

entry posted on Monday, 13 February 2006 and filed under software, stuff, support. you can follow any responses through the rss 2.0 feed. comments are closed, but you can trackback from your own site.