Closed betas ...

> That does not stop distributors from doing closed beta tests, however. Corel
> did it. Caldera (oops...SCO Group...) has done it. Lindows has done it. And
> UnitedLinux is doing it. The closed beta period ends on September 23, at
> which point the UnitedLinux beta, with source, will be available to all. In
> the mean time, however, one might wonder how the current closed beta is
> being kept closed. 

The way I'd do it is simple. "United Linux" is a trademark. You sign up to
the beta, you do not damage the trademark by releasing any code that could
be associated with the trademark.

In other words, there's nothing stopping people releasing UL code, provided
they delete all references to UL that are in the code, and they don't
mention UL when they post it wherever. Seeing as deleting references and
acknowledgements is taboo, any reputable developer will then quite happily
keep UL itself closed.

And as someone mentioned in the comments, you simply have code there that is
your own copyright, so that it becomes a breach of copyright to just copy
the UL distro "as is".

(As for open betas being better than closed - no that's not necessarily the
case. Far better start with a closed beta and squash the obvious problems
first, then go open and get the more subtle problems later. There *is*
something known as "overload" :-) The whole *point* of a beta is to find
bugs, and having your bugzilla flooded with hundreds of reports of the same
bug can easily become counter-productive)

Cheers,
Wol