Posted by DA Morgan on 09/16/05 18:39

Erland Sommarskog wrote:
> DA Morgan (damorgan@psoug.org) writes:
>
>>I don't comment on products that are, as yet, unreleased.
>>
>>Until version 1.0 is officially released it does not exist.
>>Any feature you see in Beta may or may not make it to the final.
>
> One should keep in mind that the SQL 2005 beta is very late in the cycle.
> The September CTP that was released this week is most likely the last
> public drop before the whole thing launches Nov 7th.

That may well be true. But is still no guarantee that what is in the
Beta is in the production release or that it has been implemented in
the same way.

> It is highly unlikely that any features would be dropped at this point.

I agree. But unlikely is far different from "impossible."

> Keep in mind that there are quite a few installations out there, which
> already are running SQL 2005 in production,

Then they deserve what they get. Anyone that would put a Beta into
production is a mashochist or a fool and demonstates a lack of
professionalism.

To use in for testing ... makes sense. To use it for limited development
might make sense. To move it to production is insanity.

>>The one thing that fascinates me about the SQL Server community
>>is that as a Beta tester for Oracle I am prevented by NDA from
>>saying a word about what I see. You folks, on the other hand
>>run around talking about it like you were signed on by the public
>>relations department.
>
> Guess what? Microsoft has NDAs as well, and when I first got access to
> beta 1 two years ago I was under NDA. However, Microsoft did release
> beta 1 publicly at PASS already in November 2003. Beta 2 was distributed
> with MSDN. If you want to try it (OK, just joking :-), the latest CTP
> is available on http://www.microsoft.com/sql/2005/productinfo/ctp.mspx.

So it really isn't Beta at all. It is pre-release copies: Basically
marketing and public relations.

>>Scan comp.databases.ms-sqlserver and you find post after post
>>about the Beta. Scan comp.databases.oracle.server and you will
>>find hardly a peep about 10gR2 (now released) but not a single
>>word about 11. Your is the only technology community I can think
>>of that publishes books about vapourware: Quite amusing.
>
> I would not call software that actually runs and is available to the
> public "vaporware".

The point is that the features it contains do not necessarily reflect
the production release. Capabilities may be removed. Capabilities may
be modified. Capabilities may be added. My point is that it isn't
"real."

Anyway, from a commercial point of view, it appears
> to me that Microsoft is doing the right thing. By making betas of the
> new product available early on, more people get to play it, learn it
> and know it, and will thus be more inclined to deploy it early on.

Other software companies seem to do well keeping their Betas as Betas.
I don't see SAP or IBM or anyone else thinking what you describe is
ethical.

> Since I have never used any Oracle product, I have no experience of they
> run their betas. I would be suprised though, if they never make any betas
> publically available, as most software vendors appear to do that at some
> point in the cycle.

Never. The vast majority of software companies never make Betas
available to any other than qualified testers that will actuall use
their software for purposes of testing.

Anyone thinking they can get a copy of Oracle 11 should be prepared to
buy Larry a new boat. I doubt anything less will put it into their
hands today or tomorrow.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

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