Re: Brands excluded from digicash beta

[jrochkin@cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind)]

At 6:19 PM 12/03/94, Eric Hughes wrote:
>   From: Alex Strasheim <alex@omaha.com>
>
>   > Until the Digicash system can move real value, there is no
>   > reason to use it.
>
>   I think I'm missing something here.  Isn't the Digicash system in a
>   beta-phase?  At this point, aren't they just trying to work out the kinks
>   and show people that it works?
>
>Yes, it is granted that Digicash is in beta, and not polished.  But
>beta testing usually happens after all significant functionality is
>present.  The Digicash beta isn't moving real money, and that's a
>significant functional deficit.

Huh?  Beta testing occurs after significant functionality in the _software_
is present.  The current digi-cash software, as I understand it, would work
find in a real-cash situation.  You would just need to pay for your ecash.
Yeah, a system would need to be set up to deal with fraud and such, that
might not be there right now. But that system is at an entirely different
level then the digicash software, neither vendors nor buyers would have to
deal with it.  The fact that real money isn't being moved isn't a
significant functional deficit in the digicash software, it's got nothing
to do with the digicash software.

It would be stupid to beta the software with real money, because then if it
something doesn't work right, people will lose real money. You want to make
sure that the software works pretty much flawlessly, so people don't lose
real money once the system is being used for real money. And to do that,
you release the beta software without real money.  That makes perfect sense
to me. Later, I'm sure, there will be a beta test using real money, once
the software is completely finished.