OK, besides feeling embarrassed as hell at the last post that turned out to be nothing more than a rant, I also feel guilty that this did not go up as soon as I had promised earlier; but that’s that, and here is the post ;)
Basically this can be summed up in one sentence, or even, a fragment of a sentece: Where do those builds come from?
I’d really like to know. Its not just 5259 here; I mean every single build out there that gets reported as “Stolen” then “Released;” how do they steal a program that has not been released? At the risk of stating the obvious: Doesn’t it seem as if the builds are leaked from within the company??? Its not just Microsoft either. When you have leaked versions of internal builds for Symantec, McAfee, WindowsBlinds, and all the rest, it makes you wonder: from where?
Funny how this turns out to be such a short post, eh?
Ever thought that the companies themselves know about the ‘leaking’ but simply turn a blind eye? They understand all the free publicity it will generate not to mention that it will give the market (admittedly advanced users) a chance to get their hands on the product and prehaps generate some free hype for the product? Honestly, what is their to loose when a build leaks out? People know its not a finished product, so you can get away with having lots of bugs and errors in it, and because its unfinished you can’t really use it like you would normally anyways (basically its not like they will loose lisence fees from its as the leaked build usually is too unstable to use in a production enviroment). Hmmm…
Hey Jeff….
I’ve seen stuff like that have made me wonder about what you said, namely how Microsoft does not attempt to track down Beta Leakers or Leechers (which would not be too hard given their enormaous amounts of resources and skill).
But that is not what I am trying to get at. What my question is, every other Vista Build being released to the Technical Beta Testers, and every one of those builds being available via BT and IRC within the hour, MS might not care, exactly as you so adequetely described above; but at the same time, there are the internal builds that are being leaked to the public as well…. e.g. The Pre-TAP 5259: Who leaked it? It was reported as “stolen” on the web, but how? Why? I mean, if you are going to leak, leak the 5259-Final….. No one had the pre-final except for Microsoft, and they did not need to leak it….