Some thoughts: To be honest, I don't care what it's called. Nuhi has created the single most useful tool since the ctrl-key, and Vista's n-lite should be called whatever sounds good to him =) The release of unfinished, untested, and often unstable software has many deterring issues. Many companies do not release any software before the beta stage and most don't release it at all until the final production level has been reached. There are several motivations for this behavior: Tech Support - The publication of pre-release software often results in the installation and usage by unqualified consumers with inadequate technical knowledge. They tend to use the software inappropriately, on their only PC, on a production machine, or without creating a backup. Then, they look for support from the developer. The training of support staff for software that is undergoing changes is costly and, in the long run, a mostly fruitless venture. Public Relations - When pre-release software is distributed, people focus on bugs and issues. The developers then have to deal with bad publicity because John Doe rants on his blog about how the utility crashed his system. In short: companies have to invest more into marketing and communications to compensate for negative rumors. Liability - Untested software is prone to bugs, incompatibility, and instability. Users tend to forget that they are solely responsible for any consequences of using software that is unreleased. The developer is then forced to invest extra time and energy (read: money) to make people aware of the disclaimer they agreed to before installing the application. Return on Investment - The release of software is always an economic burden. Aside from potentially increased costs for bandwidth, companies must consider marketing costs, legal fees, crunch time costs (programmers), and more. The hope is that by releasing the software, developers can focus on fixing reported bugs and integrating user requests/suggestions rather than having to acquire a broad range of environments to test the product on (ex: various motherboards/chipsets, storage interfaces, OS versions, and more). Trouble is, the majority of beta users aren't "testers" at all - they don't report problems or give feedback. Take Office 2007 for example: if the MS Beta community forums are any indication of constructive feedback, 90% of the downloads were unhelpful for Microsoft's dev team. And that's assuming everyone uses licensed downloads from MS's servers.... These are very good reasons to keep the product in-house. However, Veestah's circumstances are different. Fact is, n-lite's users are not the kind of people who call up tech support and rant about BSODs and compatibility issues. As far as I can tell, the forums here are filled with useful comments, peer tech support, and helpful development suggestions. Like in any forum, there are posts that could be ignored, but the overall n-lite user's supportive and constructive attitude displayed on MSFN is rare. This difference addresses both the Tech Support and Return on Investment issues that plague other developers. As for the problems with PR and Liability, we, the n-lite community, are Nuhi's greatest asset. An application such as his doesn't need (and should not have) broad, unidirectional advertising. I'm a college student (major: MIS) and do tech support to pay for my degree. Like many n-lite users, I discovered the program through experienced IT users and have introduced others to it. I wouldn't want everyone who just bought their first Dell to use (or even know of) n-lite because it would make my life very hard. What I'm saying, Nuhi, is that we all are your marketing team and your filter. Through us, your software can reach the vast eligible target audience that appreciates what you do. We know that nobody should be using Vista in a production-level environment at this time (or even until a couple of SPs have been released, for that matter). With that reasoning, I humbly request that Veestah be made available, even in its production state, to at least a handful of users; preferably those who are willing to contribute to the development, functionality, and compatibility of the software. By releasing n-lite while it's under construction you'll have access to a multitude of platforms that would be nearly impossible to acquire individually. For example, within two or three days, I'd have it running on: 1. an Electrovaya Scribbler SC3100 Tablet PC (Vista 5744), 2. a custom built Conroe system with IDE drives and a GeForce 7800 (Vista 5728), 3. a custom Athlon X2 4400 system with ATI graphics and SATA-II Raid 0 (5744), and 4. an HP NC6000 (Vista 5600) I guess I can't really speak for others, but I would absolutely give feedback and bug reports, and I'll gladly donate money for the time and energy you have invested. Well, that's several thoughts, I guess my first MSFN post ended up longer than expected =) I'm done proof-reading, let's hear what people have to say! -Martin
