originated by famed columnist Herb Caen] Humorous distortion of
`Berkeley' used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the
[1256]BSD Unix hackers. See [1257]software bloat,
[1258]Missed'em-five, [1259]Berkeley Quality Software.

Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and political
peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported from as far
back as the 1960s.
_________________________________________________________________

Node:beta, Next:[1260]BFI, Previous:[1261]Berzerkeley, Up:[1262]= B =

beta /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n.

1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in
beta'. In the [1263]Real World, systems (hardware or software)
software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha
(in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made to
a group of lucky (or unlucky) trusted customers. 2. Anything that is
new and experimental. "His girlfriend is in beta" means that he is
still testing for compatibility and reserving judgment. 3. Flaky;
dubious; suspect (since beta software is notoriously buggy).

Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a pre-release
(potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it
available to selected (or self-selected) customers and users. This
term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle
checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the
industry. `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test phase;
`Beta Test' was initial system test. These themselves came from