I don’t mean when, as in “what time”; I mean how many Rs will there be?
Maybe I didn’t understand you correctly; but as far as I know, after a program “hits” Beta; it can keep improving “for ever”. And Beta means, that it is usable; and has no problems (bugs).
Anyway, if your estimation is even close - it will be great!
The R# means major Release (hence an R). it’s following the version numbering convention of BeOS, which had R3, R4, and R5. Haiku’s R1 is meant to be a complete replacement for BeOS R5, and after that, R2 will be rewrites and improvements that break compatibility with BeOS.
The A# after the R# means alpha release. So R1A3 is the third alpha release of the Release 1 series. when we go into beta it will become R1B1, meaning the first beta release in the R1 series. And eventually when R1 is released and R2 is branched, the first alpha release will be R2A1, etc…
As to how many of each release there will be, only time will tell. The Haiku dev team produce release (ie fully featured public) builds based on functionality, not time.
Alright, thank you for the clarification. But a question still remains. How many (this time) Alfas until the Beta?
And another question rises - when will the Operating System be considered a Beta; as an operating System (not replacements etc). When it’ll be R1B1 OR R2B1?
~ When will I be able to use it fully (even if without a few programs) as an operating system?
I do not have any inside information so anything I say about timetables should be considered conjecture! To answer your first question, I think Alpha 3 (R1A3) was the last before Beta (R1B1)! This is only speculation, but there have been some hints that make me think I am right! lol
To answer your second question is easy. Haiku will be considered Beta when all of the planned features have been implemented and no further new features will be accepted! Then the only change to the codebase will be security and bug fixes. My spidy senses tell me that is not as far away as R1A2 was from R1A3! I say within six months we will arrive at Beta (given the rate of improvement of the codebase remains where it is)!
That is not true. Beta software is feature complete, but is usually still buggy. That is the whole point of the Alpha/Beta cycle of development. Alpha software is software that is incomplete and can be quite buggy. Beta software is software which has reached a feature complete status, but still has some visible and hidden bugs to squash!
After the developers believe the software is near bug free and is near production quality, they may release a “Release Candidate” for general testing by the public. Some projects(mostly proprietary) do not have public alpha and beta releases but do extensive testing in house. Once the developers are satisfied there is no security issues or show stopping bugs, they will release the software as stable.
As of this moment, Haiku is still in Alpha stage of development. Haiku is still not feature complete based on the developers wants and the several polls that have appeared in the forum in the past asking what features do we want for release 1. After the polls, a decision was made which features will make it to R1 and Haiku has yet to gain those features. Thus the reason we are still in Alpha stage.
Hope this answers you questions MrAccident.
Yes it does. Thank you.