[Dovecot] Dovecot Version Numbers - Let's drop the Alpha?

[Eric Rostetter]

Quoting Jack Bailey <jjb at bcc.com>:

> Cedric Puddy wrote:
> 
> > My experience is that the daemon performs much better than "alpha"
> > would ordinarily indicate.
> 
> and there's the nomenclature itself. "Alpha" means (or at least it used
> to mean) testing under control of the developers. "Beta" means testing
> under control of the users. It looks like we all agree that Dovecot is
> beyond both.
> 
> Jack

While traditionally alpha testing was an internal process, it is often
used now for external testing when there is no feature freeze.  Beta
testing would then mean that there is at least a partial feature freeze
if not a total feature freeze.

I would not argue with the idea that the current code is beta quality,
but it is the author's perogative to name it alpha or beta as the
author chooses.  The author's reputation is at stake, and he or she
has to be the one to decide when and how to release the code because
it is their reputation at stake.

What many want -- releasing it now as release quality code, when many
like myself and apparently the author don't think it is release quality
now -- is what is humorously called gamma testing, and should be avoided
IMHO.

-- 
Eric Rostetter
The Department of Physics
The University of Texas at Austin

Go Longhorns!