There needs to be more awareness in the user community that Beta Means Beta, that incomplete software has inherent risks, and that people need to be more proactive in finding their own solutions and reporting problems found in a beta release of Red Hat Linux. I propose a message in the up2date messages, installer-supplied LILO prompts, and in the initial anaconda screens, that attempts to make that more clear. An example wording may be as follows. This is a beta pre-release product, and as such, it is not complete. Expect to find issues that limit its functionality or destroy data. There is no technical support on this release of Red Hat Linux. There are no warranties expressed or implied for this release. This beta product is not recommended for the inexperienced user. Please use Bugzilla to search for known issues or report new ones. -> http://bugzilla.redhat.com/ I understand that this would make a new variable in the rollout, that this message would need to be removed from final releases. I think there should be a way to do this reliably and consistently. There are a very large number of inexperienced newcomers to Linux who are being pointed rashly toward trying Skipjack and other beta releases as a "fix" for problems. While some folks are trying to make it clear that Beta Means Beta, a prominent warning may save a few other neophytes from getting a bad experience with what they thought was the recommended Linux release. Additional Information: ----------------------- <BucWheat> ahhhh i can't up2date -u on skipjack! <BucWheat> 404: "Not Found" while attempting to get [blah blah blah] <BucWheat> mharris: fix that <mharris> Like I have anything to do with RHN/up2date... <Speare> BucWheat, have you filed bugs with Bugzilla before? <BucWheat> Speare: no i haven't <Speare> Maybe there needs to be a GIANT *&$#!% WARNING on the first screen of anaconda for betas, that reads, IF YOU DON'T USE BUGZILLA, STOP NOW. <mharris> Speare: Can you file that RFE in bugzilla please?
Too late to do anything for this release cycle. Deferring to look at again next time around.
This appears to be in place now, at least for anaconda (which this bug is currently filed against).
Time tracking values updated