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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What is the basic purpose of NetCAT ?

Simply put, the goal of this program is to get active NetBeans community members involved in testing the NetBeans IDE 5.5 Beta and RC builds. Participants will provide feedback on product usability, quality and performance. In return, these volunteers are given the opportunity to significantly influence the quality of NetBeans IDE 5.5. It is important to stress though that the NetCAT program is about quality acceptance and not about feature design.

2. How can I participate in this program ?

If you have experience with J2EE development and would like to help NetBeans, simply subscribe to nbj2ee@netbeans.org mailing list and you will receive further instructions.

3. Can you describe my responsibilities if I join the program ?

As a member of the NetCAT 5.5 program you will be expected to provide us with feedback on Java EE 5 features you will use in NetBeans 5.5. It is fully up to you to choose the areas you are interested in and want to have the chance to influence. Though it will be perfectly acceptable to only evaluate the two Beta builds, we would truly appreciate it if you used and tested the daily development builds as well. As always, you can utilize the simplified bug submission form and nbj2ee@netbeans.org mailing list to report your experiences.

Furthermore, your input may also be requested via additional surveys during NetCAT. At the end of the program you will be asked to submit a Community Acceptance (CA) survey where you can express whether or not the new main features are ready for release.

4. Are there any benefits for me ?

Yes. The opinions you voice will be treated with care. You will have a chance to influence which bugs get fixed or to speak up via the CA survey where you can describe your satisfaction with newly added features. If 20% or more of CA survey respondents identify a particular bug as a showstopper, the bug must be fixed before FCS.

Last but not least, the 50 most active NetCAT 5.5 participants will receive a gift from us! Furthermore, the three most helpful program members will win a NetBeans Shop gift certificate.

5. What about bugs in other than J2EE areas ?

All modules that are not related to Java EE 5 support remain unchanged compared to NetBeans 5.0 and are already in High Resistance mode. If you find new bugs in these areas, they will be most probably fixed in the next release unless the bug exposes serious data loss, crash or deadlock. See bug priority guidelines for more details.

6. What is already covered by Sun QA ?

We perform testing on the latest patched version of JDK 5 and JDK 6. We test NetBeans IDE on the following operating systems: Windows XP/2000, Fedora Core 3, Mac OS X 10.4.5, Solaris 10 (both Sparc and x86 platforms). The testing is done according to module particular test specifications.

7. What do RC, CA or FCS mean ?

Abbreviation	Explanation
RC	Release Candidate build
CA	Community Acceptance program name
FCS	RC build that has been accepted as First Customer Ship
HR	High Resistance period when only high priority bugs (P1, P2) can be fixed.
CF	Code Freeze milestone which declares codebase as ready for the first RC build.

8. What HW disqualifies participation in the program ?

Your HW platform is not important, however, please familiarise yourself with the requirements of NetBeans 5.5 IDE. Besides, note that IDE's minimum screen resolution is 1024x768 pixels.

Minimum Hardware Configuration

Operating system	Processor	Memory	Disk space
Solaris	450 MHz (SPARC II) or 1.8 GHz (AMD Opteron 100)	512 MB	450 MB
Windows	500 MHz Pentium III	512 MB	850 MB
Linux	500 MHz Pentium III	512 MB	450 MB
Mac OS X	Power PC G4	512 MB	450 MB

Recommended Hardware Configuration

Operating system	Processor	Memory	Disk space
Solaris	1 GHz (SPARC III) or 1.8 GHz (AMD Opteron 100)	1 GB	850 MB
Windows	1.4 GHz Pentium III	1 GB	1 GB
Linux	1.4 GHz Pentium III	1 GB	850 MB
Mac OS X	Power PC G5	1 GB	850 MB

9. What about the Subversion support ?

If you are not an expert in Java 5 EE development but want to help us test the new Subversion support, you are welcome too ! All you need to do is subscribe to interest@subversion.netbeans.org mailing list, download the Subversion module from Auto Update Center and give us your feedback. You are free to do that via the list or report all bugs/RFEs using simplified bug submission form.