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Subject:Re: Defining GA From:"Richard G. Combs" <richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:28:26 -0700
Barry Cliver wrote:
> I'm looking for a commonly-accepted definition of GA in software. I'm
> thinking General Availability means:
<snip>
I don't know if there's a commonly-accepted definition beyond the vague,
abstract notion that General Availability means the software is available to
anyone. Certainly, your specific criteria aren't commonly accepted, and most
would be commonly rejected.
At my company, we have GA and LA, or Limited Availability, releases.
Typically, we first release an LA version to a specific subset of customers,
usually 1-5. Later, a GA version becomes available to all customers.
The LA release is usually for the larger, more sophisticated customers who
drove the key features of the release.
The idea is something like beta testing, but with subtle distinctions. We
consider an LA release to be much more polished than a beta. In fact, we
sometimes share a pre-LA "beta" with customers who do rigorous testing in
their own labs. The LA release is ready for a production environment. It has
no known critical defects and is feature-complete.
The LA period has more to do with the supportability of the product than its
quality or completeness; during this time, the need for support is light,
allowing more time for internal training, getting support staff familiar
with new features, troubleshooting any issues, etc.
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