Joe Brinkman wrote
A couple items:
1. The release schedule was updated a couple weeks ago and accurately reflects where we are and when we expect to release DNN 5.0 which is NOT DotNetNuke Cambrian. Cambrian is not a single release but a series of releases of which DNN 5.0 is but the first in the series.
2. We fully understand the value of Beta testing teams which is why we have continued to expand the availability of the betas as we have progressed. Early betas were definitely not stable enough to be of value and were only useful so that core team members could easily refer to a specific build when testing, however, both Beta 5 and Beta 6 were rolled out to a fairly large audience and I expect that RC1 will include an even larger distribution.
3. Our past decisions regarding Beta's and RCs has been to release them to companies and individuals who had built businesses around DotNetNuke. The biggest indicator that a company was serious was whether they were providing material support to the project. We cannot possibly identify everyone and needed some objective measure to determine who falls into this category. Everyone may not agree with this decision, but ultimately we felt it was better than arbitrarily choosing a group of testers.
4. We expect to post the first RC in the next day or two and will likely further expand the group of individuals with access to the code. I'll make an official announcement when we post the code.
Joe
I appreciate your response and contribution to this thread.
With respect to item 3. Since 2005 I have actively promoted, trained and assisted our local community in relation to DotNetNuke, as a result this has asisted with the acceptance of both DotNetNuke and ASP.Net as solutions in our region, as a result we have provided "Material Support to DotNetNuke"over the years.
In 2005 through to 2007 we lead a proof of concept with each goverment in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines using DotNetNuke, this was sponsored initially by Microsoft who engaged me, our reputation was on the line and we had to get sign-off from Microsoft to use DotNetNuke rather than SharePoint 2007, "Yes we had access to early beta's of MOSS2007) - Our contibution is to low-economic regions of the World, as a result we had donated our time for over 70% of these projects.
While there is little more that i can add to this thread, I repeat that the process has hurt our ability to grow our opportunitities with DotNetNuke. It has been far easier over the years to gain access to Microsoft beta programs which in our case adds tremendous value to our involvement locally for certain products, DotNetNuke was the first project that we approved due to it's acess , organisational structure and open community.
IMO DotNetNuke is turning into a cluster rather than a ecosystem based group were others will have a more competitive edge or their contribution is seen as more valuable than others.
All we can do is raise our concerns with DotNetNuke Corp and hope for a solution.
Cheers
Craig