Alpha/Beta status

[courtney-rosenthal]

I'm concerned about the designation of "alpha" and "beta" status.

1. It's not clear exactly what characteristics should distinguish ideation vs alpha vs beta.
2. The phrases "alpha" and "beta" are such terms of art that I'm not sure they are readily meaningful.

I'd propose replacing "alpha" with some other term (maybe "in development"), with distinctions:

• Ideation - demonstration project, not fully operational
• In Development - for developer review, not suitable for general public use
• Beta - for development and public testing, possibly unstable, feedback invited

[PhilRumens]

This is how the UK's Government Digital Service define the different service design phases.

I tend to think of alpha as "some of it works, some of the time" and beta as "most of it works all of the time".

[evanwolf]

Different organizations will use different status labels. Let's acknowledge the reality.

Whilst UK's GDS uses:

• discovery
• alpha
• beta
• live
  The list is incomplete.

Add also:

• "suspended" - a project that's gone quiet
• "retired" - a project that's been end-of-lifed
• "orphaned" - a project that may be in alpha/beta/live but without a team; ready for adoption
• "fuhgeddaboudit" - don't ask
• "broken" - offline, compromised, or otherwise broken

Add an attribute for status: as-of (date/time)