[Elecraft] K3: preview of coming attractions

[michael taylor]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 7:41 PM, John Trager <JTrager at carolina.rr.com> wrote:
> I would think the new firmware release would be posted by now!  Isn't 600
> Beta Testers better than 20???

That's assuming it mostly works. From time to time software releases
are broken, sometimes in the "packaging" process, other times a tidbit
of unfinished code enhancement sneaks in. So to catch these errors,
software is often released in a process that goes something like:

automated build & automated install (says done nightly by scripts) ->
manual install on a single system aka "smoke test" -> a "staging"
release that is distributed to a small group (5-20 people for smaller
projects) for a short period of time -> a "beta" release to a wider
audience of savvy (power) users, and finally the "gold" version is
released if the process hasn't been terminated by this point in time.

Elecraft support doesn't need 600 reports that a bone-headed mistake
was made in the FM support for example. The first report is good
enough to alert Wayne et all to start debugging.

-Michael, VE3TIX