I think what he meant is that the release version of microsoft products are
often still in what most would consider a beta state, and have more bugs
than we know what to do with. The consumer who pays for the product is the
one doing the final beta testing until you have
win98se+sp1+fixpatch+securityfix+mp7+ie55+ie55 fix etc etc etc.
And Microsoft does charge for betas. If you receive the betas from MS in a
brown envolope, it is probably because you are an MSDN or Technet
subscriber, or because you have done beta's in the past for them. But, for
all the recent MS betas, you could go to the MS website and PAY for the beta
on CD. This is true for win98, win98se, win2k, and office2k, amoung others.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Reser" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2000 11:36 AM
Subject: Re: [Cooker] Beta???
> On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 03:02:37PM -0400, Steven R. Hatfield wrote:
> > Microsoft proudly charges money for this pleasure.
>
> While I dislike Microsoft products have beta tested for them in the past I
can
> assure you they not only do *NOT* charge their beta testers. But they
actually
> ship CDs to us on a regular basis. Comes in a nice little brown shipping
> envelope via airborne express for the unintiated.
>
> Please don't spread lies or misrepresent things in order to further Linux.
It
> only makes us all looks stupid.
>
> --
> Ben Reser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> http://ben.reser.org
>
> "EXTREMELY SERIOUS WARNING: Unless you are as smart as
> Johann Karl Friedrich Gauss, savvy as a half-blind Calcutta
> bootblack, tough as General William Tecumseh Sherman, rich
> as the Queen of England, emotionally resilient as a Red Sox
> fan, and as generally able to take care of yourself as the
> average nuclear missile submarine commander, you should
> have never been allowed near this document. Please dispose
> of it as you would any piece of high-level radioactive waste
> and then arrange with a qualified surgeon to amputate your
> arms at the elbows and gouge your eyes from their sockets"
> - Neal Stephenson, Crytonomicon
>
>
