Jakob Petsovis wrote:
Even though Drupal is server software, a server is something that can be bought for a few euros (or $YOUR_CURRENCY) at your favorite shared host, and server software is deployed as easily as to copy some files over FTP. The easier it is to get it running, the more amateur users you'll get.
Well count me as someone who did their first CMS install via Fantastico.. I'd agree that a lot of users aren't going to know what a dev release is (certainly less so than they'd know what an Alpha or Beta or RC release is) - and the situation we're talking about is when the only release available is -dev, with no other context- and maybe no alternative module purporting to do the same thing to compare with. I think the vast majority of people choose modules based on whether they do something that they need. It's only with a reasonable amount of experience that those specific needs get expanded to include abstract stuff like performant and secure code, upgrade paths etc. and often a part of getting that experience is having your site hosed a couple times.