timboZ said:
Most of the s/w you own has had thousands of beta testers. Then fine tuned and for the offical version is released.
Using it you are kind of like a beta tester.
Version 2 may cost more but it should be a lot better from all the input from the users.
This is a good way of looking at it.
As someone who has been in beta for a lot of different audio software, let me tell you, reaper's "beta team" is FAR larger and more diverse than any I've ever seen.
Normal audio software development goes like this:
1. Customers who bought the last final complain of bugs and BEG on hands and knees for features
2. Company starts building the beta team pool
3. Customers begin massive flame wars, realizing that only 3 or 4 issues will be adressed for the next release and try like hell to make sure it is their issue
4. Company will leave 1 or 2 slots open to actually adress the customers' wants, the other 1 or 2 new issues will be something the company is making to increase market share
5. Company goes into secret squirrel mode and wont even aknowledge whther or not certain BUGS will even be looked at
6. Beta testers, as representatives of their lobbies will begin looking for allies and starting their own massive flame wars on the private beta forums.
7. Company begins purging the beta team, throwing out the losers in the flame wars and also the more vocal
8. Company releases betas to the beta team with the features already locked in place with NO SAY AT ALL from the beta team
9. Beta team looks for bugs in the features they were stuck with
10. The usually once a year release comes out, everyone is pissed
In REAPER it works different
1. Everyone is a beta tester. As shown in the past, show a bug, show a repro for that bug, its likely fixed that day. New release likely that day
2. If a feature is impeeding workflow, or if a feature is needed to increase workflow, present a case for it, refine it with other reaper users, and it is likely to show up. Justin WILL take a look at it and he will ACKNOWLEDGE that he has looked at it
3. No secret squirrel BS in any customer concerns. We DO have secrets once in a while, but they are things coming from left field that we like to surprise people with, such as the new transient operations things. Or certain plugins. These are just "happy pills" someone thinks up once in a while to say "thanks for using REAPER"
4. This is the program YOU designed, you dont have to wait a year for an update, the codebase is ALWAYS being examined
