It feels like a new beta is imminent, thoughts on what it might contain?

[tdallen]

Limetech is working hard on providing a good product that you can depend on.

Allot of thought and testing goes into each change. If it's not ready, would you want to use it?

 

Completely agree.  That said, I'm in the software business myself and have observed that the communications model employed by Limetech works... poorly... unless you hit your dates.  I think Limetech uses the old ID Software release model - "when it's ready".  I'm completely fine with that, but it works better if you align the communications model with the release model. It will be ready when it's ready - so I'd suggest communicating it that way.

[reggierat]

Any day now...

[JaY_III]

Google valve time if you need help understanding what they actually mean when they give a date.

[wmcneil]

Limetech is working hard on providing a good product that you can depend on.

Allot of thought and testing goes into each change. If it's not ready, would you want to use it?

Of course not, but that is not the point.

 

Is your point is that as long as the quality is good, then limetech is absolved of any accountability for missing their target dates by a significant amount?  What do you think is the maximum amount of schedule miss for which Limetech should have no accountability? Three months?  Six months? A year? How late before you think Limetech customers are entitled to at least point out that customer expectations (set by limetech) have not been met?

 

I design computer hardware for a living, so I fully understand the difficulties and complexities of product development. As a customer of limetech, I am trying to make plans based on what limetech has provided for their target dates, and it is appropriate to point out the significant gap between limetech's targets and what has been delivered.

 

For limetech employees who might be reading this, I don't think the schedule slippage has reached the point where you have significantly damaged your credibility with respect to target dates. Not yet anyway.

[BRiT]

What's the over-under with Thanksgiving as the timeline point? 

 

I laughed when I read this (almost 2 weeks ago), but now, I think I'm taking the Black Friday side of this bet 

 

It's hard to believe that there can be so many "we're really close now" posts, and a month later, we still don't have the new beta.  :'(

 

The next over/under will be St Nicholas Day on December 6th. 

[BRiT]

For limetech employees who might be reading this, I don't think the schedule slippage has reached the point where you have significantly damaged your credibility with respect to target dates. Not yet anyway.

 

It's impossible to damage release date credibility when there is none.

 

They have yet to build up any credibility outside of hitting a few dates in a 2 month period; that's now written off as pure blind luck.

[bungee91]

I have a guess that (and I could be absolutely wrong) that they are working heavily on updating documentation prior to release...

Now I could be wrong and Dynamix is just THAT hard to incorporate, however I have my doubts.

Loooord knows documentation has been out of date for far too long!

 

I also like to speculate because I (like many) have lost most excitement surrounding seeing any new information...

"Any day now".... "Don't want to say too much".... impromptu IRC chat session.... 

[dalben]

For limetech employees who might be reading this, I don't think the schedule slippage has reached the point where you have significantly damaged your credibility with respect to target dates. Not yet anyway.

 

It's impossible to damage release date credibility when there is none.

 

They have yet to build up any credibility outside of hitting a few dates in a 2 month period; that's now written off as pure blind luck.

 

Agree with this.  Absolutely no credibility when it comes to hitting target days.  In fact, I always have a chuckle when someone from LT makes a statement regarding release dates.

[aptalca]

What's the over-under with Thanksgiving as the timeline point? 

 

I laughed when I read this (almost 2 weeks ago), but now, I think I'm taking the Black Friday side of this bet 

 

It's hard to believe that there can be so many "we're really close now" posts, and a month later, we still don't have the new beta.  :'(

 

The next over/under will be St Nicholas Day on December 6th. 

December 6th 2015 or 2016?

[Thornwood]

Many be they are trying to avoid another RFS type problem. Give them a little more time.

[BRiT]

Many be they are trying to avoid another RFS type problem. Give them a little more time.

We give them all the time in the world. Its just unnerving that their estimates of time needed is so far off base. Its been "soon" for weeks (month?) now just for the next beta.

 

Their original estimate was everything completely wrapped up with even more functionality in under 90 days (September 30th). It is approaching 150 days since then, and with less features than they had planned too. And this is still beta, not even to RC stages. How do you get to a budget overrun of at least 66%? Underestimating the tasks at hand and overestimating internal skills?

[JonathanM]

Many be they are trying to avoid another RFS type problem. Give them a little more time.

Sure would be nice if they actually SAID what was happening. It's the lack of official communication that causes more issues than the actual timeframe. I can speculate all I want about what possible problems they might be trying to overcome, but that doesn't change the fact that they said one thing, and then failed to follow through. We were promised better communication with all the new staff, and for a while JonP was posting progress fairly regularly. Then they lock the announcement board and go almost silent.

 

It's almost a given at this point that there is not enough time to fully test RC candidates and have a clean release of 6 by the end of the year.

[bkastner]

Many be they are trying to avoid another RFS type problem. Give them a little more time.

Sure would be nice if they actually SAID what was happening. It's the lack of official communication that causes more issues than the actual timeframe. I can speculate all I want about what possible problems they might be trying to overcome, but that doesn't change the fact that they said one thing, and then failed to follow through. We were promised better communication with all the new staff, and for a while JonP was posting progress fairly regularly. Then they lock the announcement board and go almost silent.

 

It's almost a given at this point that there is not enough time to fully test RC candidates and have a clean release of 6 by the end of the year.

 

There is no chance of RTM by year end. I doubt we will even see RC1 by year end.

 

It's funny, but in the IRC chat on Oct 31 Jon mentioned they were thinking of working through the night to get beta11 out the door. It would apparently be the longest night in history. Maybe they work out of the arctic circle where it's night for several months this time of year.

 

Regardless, the communication, as usual, sucks. We get tidbits here and there with obviously unrealistic timeframes, and when the timelines are blown there is no reset. It takes person after person to bug for an update before we get 1-2 lines of where things are really at. It's pretty pathetic we have to beg to get any sort of update when they volunteer timelines and blow right by them.

 

Personally, I don't care if we see beta11 this week, next month, or later - as long as we can get unsolicited updates on where things stand and what's going on. For those who keep commenting "give them more time" - that is crap. A beta process is supposed to be a two way street - we commit to running non-production software in an attempt to test new features and identify issues for the vendor, but the vendor has a responsibility to keep beta testers informed of progress. This is the only beta process I've been involved in where this doesn't appear to be the case.

 

[aptalca]

Honestly I gave up on waiting for the next release a long time ago. I figured beta 5a is very stable and works great with xen. I set up an Ubuntu server that runs all my stuff and stopped tinkering.

 

I am now at 169 days uptime on the server (has been up 24/7 since I last tinkered with it by putting in a new drive).

 

I am kind of annoyed that right after I set up the xen vm (took a lot of effort) they dropped it in favor of kvm and later Docker. I am done messing around with the betas. I'll only consider updating when or if 6 stable is released with all the features promised.

 

Limetech lost me as a beta tester

 

[reggierat]

I honestly think we are being fed little updates just to keep customers on the hook and to stop people going to other products. I think if a release date was pushed back to Feb next year a lot of people would just stop visiting the site and checking for updates every day and move their data to other products that can already offer all of unraids missing features.  I've been considering it myself but my free time for messing with stuff is very limited these days, so I'm doing my best to wait patiently.

[jonp]

Honestly I gave up on waiting for the next release a long time ago. I figured beta 5a is very stable and works great with xen. I set up an Ubuntu server that runs all my stuff and stopped tinkering.

 

I am now at 169 days uptime on the server (has been up 24/7 since I last tinkered with it by putting in a new drive).

 

I am kind of annoyed that right after I set up the xen vm (took a lot of effort) they dropped it in favor of kvm and later Docker. I am done messing around with the betas. I'll only consider updating when or if 6 stable is released with all the features promised.

 

Limetech lost me as a beta tester

We didn't drop xen. Its still there. Just an FYI. We are working on updates for you guy (both code and communications).  I understand the frustrations here and we are working to remedy that. That said, how is it any better when folks here are throwing up guesses as to when we will hit RC or final when they have NO idea whatsoever as to what we are actively working on?  In addition, dynamix is awesome, but has required a LOT of changes for proper implementation. We are still working on this even through the holiday.

 

[dlandon]

Xen is alive and well.  I have 4 Xen VMs, one of which I have an Intel IGD passed through to a Windows 8.1 VM.

 

Unfortunately, beta software by nature goes through a lot of changes as it develops.  It can be difficult and frustrating to try to keep up.

[gtroyp]

Just for the record, not frustrated here. BUT, seriously looking forward to more improvements and playing with all the new toys that LT is putting together. Thanks to the team for making my server better than my friends server (Geeks Thanksgiving  )

[dalben]

Honestly I gave up on waiting for the next release a long time ago. I figured beta 5a is very stable and works great with xen. I set up an Ubuntu server that runs all my stuff and stopped tinkering.

 

I am now at 169 days uptime on the server (has been up 24/7 since I last tinkered with it by putting in a new drive).

 

I am kind of annoyed that right after I set up the xen vm (took a lot of effort) they dropped it in favor of kvm and later Docker. I am done messing around with the betas. I'll only consider updating when or if 6 stable is released with all the features promised.

 

Limetech lost me as a beta tester

We didn't drop xen. Its still there. Just an FYI. We are working on updates for you guy (both code and communications).  I understand the frustrations here and we are working to remedy that. That said, how is it any better when folks here are throwing up guesses as to when we will hit RC or final when they have NO idea whatsoever as to what we are actively working on?  In addition, dynamix is awesome, but has required a LOT of changes for proper implementation. We are still working on this even through the holiday.

 

Us guessing dates is as helpful as LT announcing timing that never transpires.

[bkastner]

Honestly I gave up on waiting for the next release a long time ago. I figured beta 5a is very stable and works great with xen. I set up an Ubuntu server that runs all my stuff and stopped tinkering.

 

I am now at 169 days uptime on the server (has been up 24/7 since I last tinkered with it by putting in a new drive).

 

I am kind of annoyed that right after I set up the xen vm (took a lot of effort) they dropped it in favor of kvm and later Docker. I am done messing around with the betas. I'll only consider updating when or if 6 stable is released with all the features promised.

 

Limetech lost me as a beta tester

We didn't drop xen. Its still there. Just an FYI. We are working on updates for you guy (both code and communications).  I understand the frustrations here and we are working to remedy that. That said, how is it any better when folks here are throwing up guesses as to when we will hit RC or final when they have NO idea whatsoever as to what we are actively working on?  In addition, dynamix is awesome, but has required a LOT of changes for proper implementation. We are still working on this even through the holiday.

 

I am going to have to agree with dalben - your guesses on when things are going to be released don't seem to be any more accurate than ours - and you are supposed to be in the know!

 

As for RC/RTM dates, we just have to look at the history over the last 12+ months of 6.0 development to be able to decipher the fact that this product is not going RTM in the next 35 days.

 

As for Dynamix, it may be awesome, but as usual, rather than taking a measured approach with bite size chunks LT is trying to throw everything into a single release and therefore missing self-defined deadline after deadline. At the end of 2013 the goal for 6.0 seemed to be to take 5.0 and make it 64-bit and get it out the door so there was a stable platform to work from and everyone would be on the 6.0 stream (except for those few who can't support 64-bit). Then the community pushes drove Tom to include virtualization as it was the apparent successor to the broken plugin system. Then Docker was introduced, and now Dynamix which just adds delay on delay on delay. I am willing to concede that the introduction of Docker was a good side-step as it has truly provided a plugin system for the future, but the rest is fluff and shiny objects. It appears LT has no clue on how to stick to a roadmap or planned approach to release.

 

Instead of just working towards the goal of getting a stable 64-bit platform out the door you guys seem to want to jam every doodad and widget you can find into the first release for some reason which causes all sorts of issues that need to be addressed. If LT is looking to hire another body then instead of someone else to jam in widgets they should look at a project/program manager who can keep you guys focused on the end goal and curtail all the distractions.

 

If LT ever wants to grow out of the mom/pop shop into a real software company then you guys are going to have to learn how to set realistic targets and stick to them.

[Orbi]

I'm happy with the mom/pop shop 

[Sensei73]

Yeah I know it's frustrating to wait, but look at the facts:

 

-Unraid 6 works really well and does the job even for a beta

-Tom didn't charge us for a new licence

-Tom and the others (no offense) started to listen to the community for adding missing features

-Limetech is not an Inc. company with a lot of devs...

 

In my point of view, yes I want the stuff, yes I want to play with the news features as soon as I can, yes it is frustrating to wait, but in the ends was it worth it??? (64 bits, Vms support, news filesystems, dockers, etc....) my respond is YES! Thanks you Tom, thank you limetech staff, thank you all for the support! Le roi est mort, vive le roi!

[binhex]

i appreciate the effort LT is putting into the next beta.

 

For me personally i don't want rushed out releases just so they hit the release date, i want well tested code that can be relied upon, i know this is beta and thats an oxymoron, but still well tested code is better than no code. The only thing i want to know is that LT are working hard on the release, if thats happening (and by the look of jonp's last post it is) then im happy to wait.

 

My only negative comment is that maybe the release dates need to be more carefully thought out, so that you are closer to the actual dates you release, a difficult task in itself i admit.

[parsec]

To all those that defend the non delivery, the constant broken half-promises and reward-me teasers, look up the concept of a Stockholm syndrome.

/Rene

[Sensei73]

To all those that defend the non delivery, the constant broken half-promises and reward-me teasers, look up the concept of a Stockholm syndrome.

/Rene

 

lol, I signed for a licence of 32 bits Nas operating system with support of different size hdds. Now I have 64bits support, dockers, VM support...etc... I didn't ask for them and got those for free... But well that's my point of view.