Better educating about what Alpha, Beta, Release means

[Stephen John Smoogen]

I am seeing a LOT of confusion about what Alpha, Beta and Release
levels. Several people saw the world GOLD and thought that it meant
this was the final release.. other people saw Alpha Release Candidate
and got the same impression. Some of this may be user education and
some of this is our naming conventions. I don't know how to deal with
the naming conventions so leave that bikeshed for someone else to
paint.

Here is my view of what the release levels mean to me. It probably
doesn't follow the official guideline but it helps me figure out where
and what to do with it.

Alpha -- Is not a reliable OS for production or for long term
development purposes. In the old parlance, will eat kittens and laugh
when told not to. It is meant for testing only in order to get people
to find the obvious bugs and such. Use on spare hardware or hardware
that you have made a complete backup before and then can reinstall
afterwords. Upgrades from Alpha to any other release may work or they
may choke and die.

Beta -- is not a reliable OS for production but more reliable than
Alpha. In the old parlance, it may eat a kitten and then look
remorseful afterwords. It is meant for testing but should be able to
be used for day to day usage til the release candidate comes out.
Upgrades from Beta to Release may work or they may choke and die.
Upgrades from an old release to Beta should work.

Release (or Gamma in my head) -- a reliable OS for production usage
but may cough up a furball or two. It can be used for day to day usage
and should be good til the next Release or 2 if you want to take a
break from testing. Upgrades from Release to Release should work.




-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
"Don't derail a useful feature for the 99% because you're not in it."
Linus Torvalds
"Years ago my mother used to say to me,... Elwood, you must be oh
so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I
recommend pleasant. You may quote me."  —James Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd