free beta or buy a license

[GameR]

A beta phase are free, or must paid for a license to get a beta version?

I think a free beta is good for get more customers.

 

[Ben Davis]

I very much doubt you'll get a copy until Gold.

I doubt very much that /anyone/ will be getting a copy until Gold.

I request a mod close the topic before we start another pointless "war"

 

[Floris]

I wish I got a free copy. It's ridiculous that I have to wait. I've been here for over a month, from the first alpha build, and it's still not beta or gold. Very disappointing.






he.

 

[Ben Davis]

he.

Lol Floris, and you're normally so quick to b*tch-slap people that try saying "I want a beta copy NOW! *throws tantrum*"

 

[Erik]

I wish I got a free copy. It's ridiculous that I have to wait. I've been here for over a month, from the first alpha build, and it's still not beta or gold. Very disappointing.

I wondered if your account got hacked until I saw the last word at the bottom...

 

[Lycaon]

I request a mod close the topic before we start another pointless "war"

Surrender Tommy for you the war is over!

 

[feldon30]

anyone want another experience of 'pay to beta' ?

At least we're being told it's a Beta, and that Beta window will end at some point. I believe developing plugins and styles for XenForo will be a lot of fun, and a totally different experience than that other forum (which after 9 months is still, for all intents and purposes, beta software).

 

[feldon30]

In my opinion the bad point was more the case when everyone who purchased another forum product were allowed to access a beta.

vBulletin was public betas for 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7. It worked very well, bugs were found and fixed incredibly fast. vBulletin 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 were all relatively bug free for the most part, and any deal-breaking bugs were fixed within *hours* not months.

vBulletin 4 had a private alpha test where not only hundreds of bugs were pointed out, but huge design flaws were discussed. In the end, about 5% of the major bugs were fixed, the design flaws were glossed over, and then the software went beta. Another 5-10% of bugs were fixed and presto it's "gold".

vBulletin 4.1, which is currently slated to hit beta approximately 1 year after the beta of vBulletin 4.0 will finally fix some of those design flaws which were pointed out so long ago.

So what exactly is your fear of having a public beta?

One problem, which has already been mention by Ceri May if I remember right, is there will be bugs, or worse still not bugs, posted numerous times by numerous members - Kier & Mike will end up spending nearly as much time going through the forums/tracker marking items duplicate and not relevant as they will actually fixing bugs.

If Kier and Mike are spending any time sorting through and collecting bugs, then there is a serious problem going on here. There should be volunteers or paid interns doing this and generating daily or weekly reports. And moderators should be merging all related threads.

If every single customer was developer minded then it would work but most of us aren't. There will be countless bug reports where the person reporting them hasn't got a clue what they're chatting - Kier & Mike will have to try decipher what the hell it is they're talking about and asking them to make it clearer. This time could be spend fixing things and adding new features.

vBulletin currently has closed alpha, mostly closed beta, and a QA department. So far, it's a total failure compared to the previous open betas.

Open betas have worked successfully for Google, Linux, all open source software, and yes vBulletin. The concept of closed alphas and betas was something cooked up by InternetBrands and the result was almost entirely negative.


I go back to the importance of having a Community Manager who acts as a giant filter. I'm not saying Kier and Mike shouldn't read the forum, only that their time could be channeled to the biggest issues first.

 

[Lycaon]

So what exactly is your fear of having a public beta?

I have already stated this.

There should be volunteers or paid interns doing this and generating daily or weekly reports. And moderators should be merging all related threads.

Fair dos but paid may not work just yet, XenForo LTD isn't an established company, obviously I don't know but I'm assuming Kier & Mike need to sell before they can get to that stage.

Volunteers will need to know something about developing/designing too to be able to do this, why don't they just become the testers?

vBulletin currently has closed alpha, mostly closed beta, and a QA department. So far, it's a total failure compared to the previous open betas.

Since Internet Brands took over and especially since version 4 I would say that vBulletin is a failure period.

Open betas have worked successfully for Google, Linux, all open source software, and yes vBulletin.

Please don't take this is the wrong way because I don't mean it to be rude but if open betas worked for vBulletin in the past, what went wrong this time?

I go back to the importance of having a Community Manager who acts as a giant filter. I'm not saying Kier and Mike shouldn't read the forum, only that their time could be channeled to the biggest issues first.

You could be right there.

I just still don't think open beta is a good idea.

 

[feldon30]

Please don't take this is the wrong way because I don't mean it to be rude but if open betas worked for vBulletin in the past, what went wrong this time?

Ok, vBulletin 3.0, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 were all under Kier and Mike and under Jelsoft banner. They all had open betas, and issues were fixed BEFORE gold release. One of the betas lasted a few months, but the resulting product was excellent and worth the time invested.

vBulletin 4.0 was produced by a mishmash of developers under the Internet Brands banner. On August 19, 2009, Alpha testing of vBulletin began. I have read the alpha testing feedback forum (I am not under NDA) and most of the feedback was completely ignored. vBulletin Alpha 6 was installed on a Chinese forum and many users got their first look at vBulletin this way. This forced IB's hand to release vBulletin 4.0 Beta 3 to the public on November 12, 2009. On December 22, 2009, vBulletin 4.0 Gold is released to the public to meet a shareholder release window.

I have heard all kinds of strange stories out of IB such as developers were discouraged to quickly fix bugs, or had to get approval to do certain work. Or so many planning meetings that there's no time to get work done. Of course this is all rumors and not provable.

But I just do not believe that IB and the vBulletin team are not structured to produce excellent, high quality software in a short time. I'm not sure what it's structured like, probably like a marketing team.

 

[Lycaon]

You've obviously had a better experience in the past than me.

I only had experience with version 4 beta and not the others so I'm only going on what I've personally seen and I didn't like it.

You're most likely right that an open beta would be okay, but like I said my experience wasn't a good one and I can't help but not like the thought of it.

 

[Onimua]

You've obviously had a better experience in the past than me.

I only had experience with version 4 beta and not the others so I'm only going on what I've personally seen and I didn't like it.

You're most likely right that an open beta would be okay, but like I said my experience wasn't a good one and I can't help but not like the thought of it.

The open betas of vBulletin 3.x provided one of the most stable releases of software I've seen when they hit gold. It's unfortunate your experience has been with v4, but open betas aren't as bad as you might think. It just comes down the how efficient the developers are and how organized their workflow is (and Kier and Mike have years of experience in this).

A lot of people ran betas on their live sites (though it wasn't recommended) without any real issues. That's how confident people were in the software back then. I suspect we might see the same thing here as well.

 

[ManagerJosh]

I have already stated this.

Fair dos but paid may not work just yet, XenForo LTD isn't an established company, obviously I don't know but I'm assuming Kier & Mike need to sell before they can get to that stage.

Volunteers will need to know something about developing/designing too to be able to do this, why don't they just become the testers?

Since Internet Brands took over and especially since version 4 I would say that vBulletin is a failure period.

Please don't take this is the wrong way because I don't mean it to be rude but if open betas worked for vBulletin in the past, what went wrong this time?

You could be right there.

I just still don't think open beta is a good idea.

Not to sound like I'm jumping down your throat, but most of us have had a fantastic history with Kier and Mike. We saw their work in the last stages of vBulletin 2, and when they spearheaded vBulletin 3. I remember watching each major increment of vBulletin 3. Alpha, Beta. Heck, they were not satisfied with the status of vBulletin 3 during its development, they introduced a "Gamma" series (more polished than beta, but not release candidate material).

You are totally correct that xenForo Limited isn't an established company, but the people who are running it, Kier, Mike, and Ashley are some of the best and brightest minds from Jelsoft. The experience they brought to the table at Jelsoft is now being channeled into this xenForo.

I can promise you they have a proven track record with those of us who's held an original vBulletin 2 and vBulletin 3 license.

 

[Peggy]

Not to sound like I'm jumping down your throat, but most of us have had a fantastic history with Kier and Mike. We saw their work in the last stages of vBulletin 2, and when they spearheaded vBulletin 3. I remember watching each major increment of vBulletin 3. Alpha, Beta. Heck, they were not satisfied with the status of vBulletin 3 during its development, they introduced a "Gamma" series (more polished than beta, but not release candidate material).

You are totally correct that xenForo Limited isn't an established company, but the people who are running it, Kier, Mike, and Ashley are some of the best and brightest minds from Jelsoft. The experience they brought to the table at Jelsoft is now being channeled into this xenForo.

I can promise you they have a proven track record with those of us who's held an original vBulletin 2 and vBulletin 3 license.

aaaaaaaamen to that!


ps - those licenses were paid for too.

 

[Lycaon]

Not to sound like I'm jumping down your throat, but most of us have had a fantastic history with Kier and Mike. We saw their work in the last stages of vBulletin 2, and when they spearheaded vBulletin 3. I remember watching each major increment of vBulletin 3. Alpha, Beta. Heck, they were not satisfied with the status of vBulletin 3 during its development, they introduced a "Gamma" series (more polished than beta, but not release candidate material).

You are totally correct that xenForo Limited isn't an established company, but the people who are running it, Kier, Mike, and Ashley are some of the best and brightest minds from Jelsoft. The experience they brought to the table at Jelsoft is now being channeled into this xenForo.

I can promise you they have a proven track record with those of us who's held an original vBulletin 2 and vBulletin 3 license.

Where have I said that I have doubt in Kier & Mike?

I'm saying that if it's an open beta then there could be a problem with the people that will post the same bugs, not bugs etc numerous times, and there's bound to be a lot of that.

 

[Ben Davis]

Josh, Doctor never said anything about doubting Kier and Mike's ability to produce amazing work. If anything he has been supporting them. The point he was trying to make was that if an open beta was to happen, then the precious time they have available for development will be severely reduced due to duplicate bug reports, bug reports for things that aren't even bugs and also having to decipher what each tester actually means when they post a bug report. As we said earlier, sure they could get people that could speak in a 'universal tongue' so that they could all understand each other but that would take time and effort which I doubt neither Kier or Mike have.

Again, we're saying that Kier and Mike have done an amazing job and we are behind them, but an open beta might not be the best idea.

 

[Shamil]

Or people could sift through and merge duplicate reports.

 

[RickM]

Not to sound like I'm jumping down your throat, but most of us have had a fantastic history with Kier and Mike. We saw their work in the last stages of vBulletin 2, and when they spearheaded vBulletin 3. I remember watching each major increment of vBulletin 3. Alpha, Beta. Heck, they were not satisfied with the status of vBulletin 3 during its development, they introduced a "Gamma" series (more polished than beta, but not release candidate material).

You are totally correct that xenForo Limited isn't an established company, but the people who are running it, Kier, Mike, and Ashley are some of the best and brightest minds from Jelsoft. The experience they brought to the table at Jelsoft is now being channeled into this xenForo.

I can promise you they have a proven track record with those of us who's held an original vBulletin 2 and vBulletin 3 license.

^ Listen to this guy...dont make me quote this every time someone starts one of these threads!

Peggy: I vote thread closing time (quote and +1 to add your vote)

 

[Ben Davis]

Wow... I do believe I'd already suggested that this thread be closed.
Oh well, I +1 Rick's suggestion to close it.

 

[Peggy]

I was waiting for the OP to request the thread be closed, but he hasn't been back. So........

Thread closed.