A Few Beta2 Questions

Quote
James wrote: Will this beta time out at some point

Yes it will: you'll need to download a next beta stage (or a commercial 2.0 version if it is released by that moment).

Quote
Is it ok to un-install V1 standard now

It's up to you However don't forget that 2.0 is still a beta version.

Quote
Are the new nodes/modules possible to change or are they fairly final

They are far from final — this is one of the reasons we don't allow to submit 2.0 filters yet.

Yes, we plan to announce a time-limited discounted v1-to-v2 upgrade preorder — a couple of weeks before the commercial release.

in a related question, are you going to finalize stage one and make it an official release and then go to stage two, or are you going to go through all the stages and then make just one official release for version II?

Thanks for the info, im also thinking of buying the pro version. Would it be better to order now at 50% discount and then buy the V1-V2 update when thats available? or will the limited time offer be as good? and it is ok to just wait untill then and just directly upgrade from V1 standard to V2 pro?

thanks, gmm

james, and others, the 50% discount is the largest discount FF, inc. has ever offered, (short of the beta program free copy and the earn your copy by making filters discounts) as far as i recall, and i've been here since the second day FF was offered up for beta testing. granted, my recall isnt as good as it used to be, but this is the first time i recall it being offered (or was it offered last christmas season too? lol. dont get old. )

at any rate, for those who are thinking this is a pre-version II release price on version I, i'd say no. stage one of version II has already taken up a fair amount of time and there is no offering on stage II yet. so, it's going to be some months before version II is officially released. and with what GMM just said in his last couple of posts, there may even be a third stage and then a final test/RC stage. that sounds like the earliest possible date for official release wouldnt be until at least fall of 2010 or maybe at the earliest, mid-summer. now, that's just my personal guess and it's only a guess. vlad and the rest of the folks at FF, inc. may well prove me wrong. so, this is only my opinion. so, take it for what it's worth. and, you can always get into the beta testing. as far as i know one can still download the beta II demo and apply to FF, inc. for a product key that shld be good all the way through all the testing. so, nothing really to lose there. you get a free ride and new toys to play with. sounds like christmas to me

Quote
I was under the impression that -- for backwards compatability reasons -- you should keep all the components from the different beta stages. Otherwise, filters created during beta could become totally unusable!?

Yes, it's so. We always create a new version of a component after its changing.
BTW we've escaped a BIG pitfall connected with versioning of the result component in the second stage We've just added an additional functionality without any changes in existing algorithms