Going about beta-testing a program... advice?

[Andrew Hammond]

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Madison Kelly wrote:
| Hi all,
|
|   After nearly six months the backup program I have been writing for my
| company is coming alive (it's backing up data, backing up multiple
| sources and spanning destinations simultaneously, etc...). The next step
| I guess is to start asking brave souls to beta test it and so here I am
| yet agin hoping for advice.

My advice would be to answer the question: what niche of the market are
you aiming for? I'm not seeing any features that aren't already provided
by other backup packages. To break into the enterprise market, your
application would need some incredibly compelling feature that can't be
replicated in 6 months by your competitors. And if you're aiming for
Linux as a platform then you've pretty much ruled out the low end
market. They're too cheap to hire the skills necessary to run linux.

|   The biggest caveat is that it isn't a GPL program though it will be
| free to use by home users and the source code will be made availbale to
| all to see (though not to use in other programs). We're banking on the
| honesty of companies and their desire to see us succeed (and to a lesser
| extend they're desire to operate legally, though we aren't that naive :p
| ) to win sales.

So you want an admin / MIS / CIO to gamble their reputation by
recommending an unknown, unproven back-up system with unclear licensing?
There's already a good selection of solutions which are well known and
proved. A few thousand dollars a year for software licenses is nothing
if it buys a solution. Saving a few thousand dollars in software
licenses at the cost of risking business critical data (and your job) is
insane.

| I do expect my company will release it fully under the
| GPL once they see that they can recover their develepment costs and
| survive but that isn't for sure and I don't want to have anyone offer to
| help with false promises.
|
|   Given that caveat how would people here suggest I go about
| beta-testing? The program is quite alpha-stage and it should definately
| -not- be run on a machine with valuable data yet not one that can not
| afford to be down. Beyond standard error reporting I am also hoping for
| feedback on how to make code more secure and efficient. Particularly the
| database access portion of it which is a massive bottle neck.
|
|   Should I setup Bugzilla (or something similar) or would that be
| overkill/a distraction for a program this early into it's development?
| What can I expect to come in so far as feedback is concerned? Just what
| should I expect?

Bugzilla or you could use RT (which I prefer).

|   Beyond this general question would this be something people here on
| TLUG would be interested in beta-testing (given it's non-GPL license)?
| If so, should I give more information in another post or should I have
| people email me? Would people like a more detailed example of what the
| program is?
|
|   Any advice is greatly appreciated. This is one of the largest projects
| I have ever been involved in and I am nervous that I will mess it up or
| upset the community with a mis-step. :p

I contribute to GPL projects because by enriching the commons, I enrich
myself. What do I get out of contributing to your project?

- --
Andrew Hammond    416-673-4138    ahammond-swQf4SbcV9C7WVzo/KQ3Mw at public.gmane.org
Database Administrator, Afilias Canada Corp.
CB83 2838 4B67 D40F D086 3568 81FC E7E5 27AF 4A9A
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