Hello DavidR, Alikhan, Patrick2 and others. Let me get back to your comments and questions from the beginning of this BETA post. It goes beyond the particular update, however important enough to go deeper
First of all,
THANK YOU for your interest related to (not only) BETA program itself. The feedback you provide as well as your physical presence here in the forum, is really and highly appreciated. You all are one strong and important part of the Avast Antivirus development life cycle.
Now, let me comment some of your questions and comments.
Q: If we are so close to the public release, why are there are there so many Known Issues ?A: I guess you are referring (with the "many") to the 5 known issues mentioned in this forum post, right? If so, it could be relative how much is many for you as well as for the others. What is more important I think is that how probable is that you meet such (even 5 or 150) issues and what is the impact of them to you and your system. For example, for the first look, crash could be taken as very serious issue. And you would be right, but if it happens in situation that just 1 out of 1 000 000 clients will get it, it does not seem to be such a big deal. Moreover, we need to think about decission not to release new version "on time" with all the other fixes and new features to the remaining 999 999 just because of this one. This is why the quality of the product is not something you can actually "measure", it is something you need to discuss. Each of the problem is unique to some degree and require discussion about what will happen if we do this or that. As we take care about our (not only BETA) users here in Avast, we discuss such bugs, their probability to happen and their possible impact.
Q: Known issue survived for many program updates.A: Well, there could be few reasons why. First could be, that we are trying to fix it, but are unsuccessful so far. Second could be, there is something more important that this one. For example another issue which was found internally and is a bigger issue than this one. You will not see it in the last forum post and probably not even in the new one and we need to give it higher priority. Another could be that the person maintaining this part of the code is not available at the moment (illness, vacation, etc.). As for the previous question, it is something we discuss internally (discussion on top all unresolved issues, new features, etc.) and always aim for what will be the best for most of our users.
Q: Often BETA updates (related to monthly updates).A: One beta update per week (sometimes "longer" week
as we are not so precise to be on time) represent lot of code changes. Each of the code change may harm the product functionality, performance, security and other quality attributes of the software. I personally believe it is a good practice. If we are able to release program update for every single code change, that would be great. Because when you are able do it, you may be able to isolate a code change, that makes trouble with the software. On the other side, you can deliver the new features, bugfixes, code refactoring and other changes very quickly to the user you take care about. One code change still represent less risk for the product quality then 100 of them. And when we continue with this chapter to PUBLIC release once per month - not only new features, support of MS Windows "changes" and other stuff is important. It is about fixing all the problems we found internally as well as from the outside - BETA, public channel, etc.
Nothing is perfect and Avast Antivirus client is not an exception. We need to accept this fact and focus on whatever best and meaningful we can do in given time and resources.
This is how I see it. Thank you for reading such a big post and have a nice day!
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Petr
