Wow, this is awesome. I just hope they will pay attention to what users are having issues with. This is one of the main reasons why Windows 7 was a major success, the long open beta program really improved it big time.
Hopefully, the same thing will happen here but I have a bad feeling that Apple will just release bad releases as is without delaying based on what their beta team said.
I take it that it would not be a good idea to replace one's only system with the beta?
You can install it on a separate partition or install the beta on a fast external drive.
So you would have to run the software in a virtual environment? As a normal user, I wouldn't want to run into bugs in apps regularly used, if my only OS was a beta.
Sort of a risky move for non devs, if you ask me..
it's not a risky move, it worked out excellent for Microsoft. Apple's QA has suffered badly in the last two years, AppleSeed might be the thing to improve it.
In addition, no, you don't have to do this in a VM. You can install it on a separate partition or on a fast external drive. Use the beta full time and if the beta is so bad or unstable, just switch back to the regular OS partition.
Are the betas usually very unstable? (I know that is the point of the beta, but I mean severely unstable.)
Beside one bad install, betas are reasonably stable for me.
You just have to be patient to work around some annoying bugs that might pop up.
Note that .x.x (10.9.3) updates are usually stable. It's the bigger .x major update (10.10) that are going to be unstable for a few months.