I somewhat agree with master Bradley. I've seen public betas and private betas, betas by invite and permanent betas. This is the first "paid beta" that I've ever had. We have paid JRiver to beta test MC. It's a bit odd.
Jim, you know what kind of guy I am, so please don't take this post as a flame or immature dissent. I've registered and was very happy to do so (course, back then it was MJ8 and a whole different ball of wax. Very happy that I got in on the "ground floor" of MC9). I'm just trying to be a good customer and give some honest feedback.
Perhaps, while MC9 is in beta, you could program each build to expire 10 days after posting it, unless it is registered/activated/purchased. This way, people can either:
1. Register and use "build x" forever or keep downloading new builds as they're released. When MC9 goes gold, they'll still have a registered and activated copy.
2. Download each beta build and use it for 10 days for free, until MC9 goes gold. 10 days after posting, "build x" will not launch ("This version has expired") and they'll be required to download the latest build to keep rolling. Yes, this would force them to keep installing every single new build, as they're released, but beta testers won't mind this at all -- they're doing this already; freeloaders will absolutely hate it,
. When MC9 goes gold, they'll have to buy it or not use MC at all, since the final beta would have expired 10 days after posting.
If you say "Dang, Kurt's right! Let's do that!" (hehe!
) then I would also say to take the 30-day trial period completely out of the beta. Put it back in when MC has gone gold, because it's a great thing. But while in beta, I would forgo the 30-day trial with the 10-day beta expiration.
At the end of the day, I think that it's a good solution that would come close to making all parties happy.