On Monday 15 August 2005 18:48, Richard wrote:
I thought I read on this list, some eons ago, that the difference was that Beta's might not include all programs for testing at any one time and they could still include updated apps. RC releases were a statement of final inclusion of program or app updates or versions, that only "included" bugs would be fixed, but newer versions or releases of other apps would not be incorporated. Just my understanding. I have been wrong on many points in the past, not a fact which any of you are free to inform my wife about.
No, that's 'feature freeze'. After the feature freeze is in effect, they move on to the alpha releases, which are too buggy for testing by end users and QA. They are 'developers only' releases When they decide that the software is good enough to be tested by end users, they start with the beta releases. When they think they have something that is good enough to be released, they produce the release candidate. As I mentioned, this is a version that if there are no 'show stopper' bugs found, will be the final release. It is a candidate for release