Releasing the software earlier would make everything easier. The argument that multiple versions would be confusing is not a valid one, as there are always several different versions of the software and the updates aren't always the greatest.
Right now, the update system for Java is a disaster. Googling "frc java update" gives you a site where the 2011 Java updates are located, which links to the firstforge site, which gives you the 2012 version.
In 2011, they used "WPI first robotics resource center", in 2012 they used "FIRST forge", and in 2013, they used Screenstepslive.
The new software libraries tend to have some bugs (2012 smart dashboard memory leak, 2010 encoder issues...).
For 2013, I'd argue that the provided software actually went backwards and got worse from the 2012 version. For instance, PID in C++ had issues where it would stop working that were not resolved until 1 month after kickoff. Also, one of the most useful features of the driver station, the charts, did not properly display CPU usage, as the scale in the graph was off (it only showed up to 15%). Attempting to look at the log files was useless, as a version of the log file viewer that worked with 2013 log files was not released until 28 days after kickoff. (What happened to the improved diagnostics promised in the Einstein report?
)
If a "pre-release" version was released before kickoff, teams that worked before the season started would be able to easily catch bugs and typos that would save tons of time, such as networktables2, which wasn't really ready. Networktables prevented labview code from deploying, and attempting to use networktable and live window with C++ when using threads caused null pointers. (Again, the Einstein report said "Improved Documentation on Advanced Coding – Documentation on advanced code features, particularly
threading and networking will be improved")
</rant about control system>