Quoting "Robert P. J. Day" rpjday@mindspring.com:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Alan Cox wrote:
The answer is "When its ready", and part of the "its ready" is making sure we can avoid getting into the same situation again
as i already mentioned, that would normally be a reasonable response if *red hat* had not already suggested a date for the next beta, as i recall. but there's another reason why the "when it's ready" answer is kind of irrelevant.
we're not talking about an official release here. we're talking about a *beta*, which we as beta testers *expect* to have flaws, glitches and bugs. so what does it even mean to say that a beta is "ready" anyway?
from the timestamps on one of the download mirrors, it seems that this beta has been out for about five weeks now. i don't think it's unreasonable to think that there have been enough bug reports and fixes to let the beta testers have a crack at an improved version.
no one expects it to be perfect. but it would be nice to have a crack at a newer release that we *should* expect to have fewer bugs so we can start the testing process over again and push it along even further.
i mean, really. it *is* just a beta.
I think Alan means something entirely different. The *software* is out there in the form of rawhide - what do you expect the beta to have if not that stuff? The way I read Alan's comment is that the initial announcement raised incorrect assumptions/legal issues/whatever and they want to get that kind of stuff right before "relaunching."