On 10/10/2009 04:08 PM, Neil wrote: > Ken Rudolph wrote: > >> What's the difference between this and the actual release? Since I'm >> not a techie, I chose not to be a beta tester; but I've been waiting >> for the actual release, which I had heard was happening "in a week or >> so". Apparently this still isn't the official release version? > > This is the first version that could technically become official. Until > then it's basically just another beta. Although we have hardened users > that test nightly builds which hopefully finds most of the major bugs, > it's only when we let all the beta testers loose on the release > candidate that we discover how reliable it actually is. After a week or > so, we'll decide whether or not it's ready; if it's not, we fix, or more > likely work around, as many bugs as we can and release another candidate > and repeat the process. Eventually (hopefully we run out of bugs before > we get bored of fixing them) we decide to make the latest candidate the > official released version. Any subsequent major bugs will then have to > wait for 2.0.1. >
And works well enough, after testing for the past few days on test machines, that I am now running 2.0rc1 (linux version) on this, my primary work machine w/emails & archives going back over 5 years. Of course I have critical bits backed up... but my point is that I'm confident enough to run it on a daily basis. That doesn't mean that something might not crash, or I won't encounter an issue. I *does* mean that I'm sufficiently confident that 2.0rc1 (and actually nearly any 2.0pre nightlies lately) is close enough to 2.0 final that I trust it with my daily work. @Ken et al; If you don't feel comfortable testing a beta, or release candidate, then I'd recommend that you stick with what you have now and wait for the final release. The purpose of asking for testers for beta & rc's is, as Neil pointed out, so that 'users' that are familiar with testing participate. At this stage (Neil etc will correct me if I'm wrong) it's important to get 'users' to test outside of the development box & test in regular/daily use & provide feedback to the developers (via bugzilla preferably, or this group) as soon as they encounter a problem. Note: I'm not a developer, I am a regular 'user' that personally uses SeaMonkey 10-12 hours per day. I participate on at least 5-10 high volume newsgroups and mail lists daily, have archived emails back to 2002, have commercial customers (linux and Windows) that _only_ run SeaMonkey, etc. So it's important to me to see SeaMonkey 2.x succeed. I've not run 1.1.x for many months now. I still keep 1.1.18 available for testing & run 2.x and 1.1.x side-by-side when needed for comparison and/or client support. However, even with the bugs still outstanding in 2.0 (and there will always be bugs), I'll stick with 2.0. I just checked my crash reports (I also use the nightlies), and the last actual crash report that I had in SeaMonkey 2.0 was Oct 1, 2009. However that one doesn't count as I was testing & it involved Flash, and so the last actual valid crash was in June. So I'd encourage 'users' that are familiar SeaMonkey, know how to backup your folders/directories, restore/reinstall SeaMonkey, and are are willing to help test rc1 to please do so. Running the litmus tests (https://litmus.mozilla.org/run_tests.cgi?test_run_id=7) only provides a limited/basic test of user funtionality. *Using* 2.0rc1 in our everyday 'user' environment & reporting issues as quickly as possible is considerably more valuable overall (IMO). _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
