Is there too much beta software? I ask this because it seems that in the past few years, especially since the introduction of Mac OS X, shareware and commercial developers have been putting out more beta software than ever. This can have it's advantages and disadvantages, but is this trend really good for the public?

For the uninitiated, beta software is the stage in the development cycle where a developer thinks his software is stable, but still contains various bugs. Normally, the developer will distribute this beta software to a select set of users (or for commercial software, a special testing team will get it), who will use the software on various machines and setups, looking for bugs. This is one of the best ways to test the stability of software, and make sure nearly all of the bugs have been removed.

While this process is necessary, many companies and developers are seemingly getting away from the beta testing team, and distributing this software to the public. By doing this, many people are getting the latest software at a possible price. If a major bug is still embedded in the code of the program, havoc can ensue on users' systems. A recent example is the Apple public beta of Safari. The originally posted version had the ability to nearly disable users' machines.

In my mind, software that contains bugs such as this should never, ever reach the public's hands. These kinds of bugs should be found and squashed in the alpha stage of testing, before it even reaches the beta stage. This may be a drastic example, but it does display how developers releasing this beta software to the public are giving up their responsibilities to thoroughly test their software before releasing it.

The worst thing about this whole ordeal is that new users don't always recognize the dangers of using beta software. Veteran computer users should know enough to backup all their important data before trusting the beta software to their computer, but this doesn't always happen either. Releasing no-warranty, little-support software to the unsuspecting public can be a dangerous thing.

So in fact, I do think there is too much publicly available beta software currently available. I think developers should take more steps to ensure their product is top notch before it reaches the general public, mainly by having a special team of beta testers who are willing to take the risks. I hope developers will begin to realize this, and start taking more responsibility for their software.

NOTE: My Space Dungeon program is available as a public beta. I decided to do this after a few months of private beta testing (a group of about 200 people), and finally decided to cease development on that program. I took the proper precautions before making this decision.