Why you need to download and test CiviCRM v2.0 ...

CiviCRM v2.0 has gotten really good community feedback and testing. We plan on having at least two more beta releases before issuing a final release. Both the forums and the issue queue have been very busy with good bugs (some of which have been there for the past couple of versions!) and great feature ideas, many of which we plan to implement in v2.1. We've already resolved more than 375 bugs in v2.0 which is close to 100 more bugs than the previous highest (282 in 1.8). The forums are averaging more than 75 forums post / weekday. Most of these posts are either related to 2.0 or we test it on 2.0. We currently have at least 150 sites that have downloaded and installed 2.0 (thanx to our new improved ping back mechanism which gives us stats with regard to version numbers and cms). We'd like to bump this number up significantly over the next couple of weeks. Some reasons why you might want to try the new beta include:

• We are super helpful if your db does not upgrade nicely. You describe the symptoms, mail us the db, we check and either fix the db and/or the upgrade scripts and/or both. I suspect this will not continue indefinitely.
• The database schema is frozen, so all future upgrades are just code upgrades which is relatively trivial for all drupal installs.
• If there is a bug in your favorite feature / workflow (hopefully not), we will fix it before 2.0 goes final. We do not make non-critical changes to the release once it goes final.
• Beta testing the release helps you find the small crucial things missing in 2.0, which in turn results in some good feature suggestions for 2.1. The 2.1 issue queue (http://issues.civicrm.org/jira/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?mode=hide&requestId=10320) and feature list (http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/CiviCRM+v2.1) is being discussed now
• Most importantly you will get vary valuable karma points from the civicrm community as you report those potential bugs on the forum :)

A huge shout out to eileen, peterd and chris (coincidentally all kiwis) for their efforts in testing the release. Also a big thanx to speleo (who is NOT a kiwi) for updating the CiviCRM ERD (http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviCRM+ERD+2.0)

Comments

Kiwis are a notoriously shy nocturnal bird and are probably very afraid of noises too. That said, all I can say on behalf of us flightless antipodeans is - aw shucks.

I would like to test 2.0 on two production sites. I have local copies of these sites on my MAMP server. Please offer suggestions on how to apply the upgrade and what to look for when testing. Thanks!

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Upgrade+Drupal+Sites+to+2.0

lobo