>SNIP
>>
>>Not necessarily. It would take more effort to monitor the bug list and fix the bugs. It could also stretch out the beta cycle.
>
>That's curious... I 'll agree that there would be some additional effort by the added volume of bug reports. But it really is fair to assume that most would be duplicates of others already reported and that such reports would be handled very promptly (very little added work).
>Those that aren't duplicates form the very basis of "beta testing" in the first place.

Someone still has to look at the new report and check the current database to see if its already in there. There may also be reported bugs that look similar from the description, so testing would have to be done to verify if the bugs are the same or different.

>
>Your argument can be read as 'it would expose too many bugs and make it too laborious to fix them'.
>Did you mean something else?

That's basically what I meant, but I can clarify this. I'm all for getting bugs out of the prodcut, but remember that shipping is also a feature. I'm pretty sure that MS has a projected ship date for VFP8. If many bugs are reported, then some will not be fixed in order to make the ship date.

>
>regards
>
>PS I doubt that MS would authorize a download of the beta too. BUT it would demonstrate something positive to the community, even if it was only available AFTER DevCon. Being "out of the box" was to let us do our own thing in our own way, yet to date very little different has been DONE.

As I recall, the idea of "being out of the box" was to have its own marketing and release timelines. There are still other policies and procedures in MS that the Fox team must follow.