[EricH]

You know, it's called "beta test" for a reason. If a video game is in the beta test stages, maybe a few thousand people are playing it out of millions, and NOBODY else has access.

The "test" part means that those libraries are most likely untested or not tested under "battle conditions".

FIRST may be assuming that the other teams can't handle it, but probably not. I would actually assume that they know that the teams (for the most part) can handle it, but choose not to so that there aren't 1500+ solutions to a problem which could be more easily solved by fifteen teams finding a better solution.

I would actually say that by controlling the release of those libraries, they are doing us a favor by making sure that said libraries are complete. Which is worse: Knowing that a library is there and not having access, or having access only to find out the hard way that it doesn't have what you need?

Or, for another example, say FIRST accidentally released part of the Manual early. One of the parts talking about the game, say, in early December. Maybe it's missing a subsection; maybe it isn't quite clear. Teams start planning. Then they release the game in January and lo and behold, there's an extra subsection, it's a whole lot clearer, and there's a major change. Would you be confused? That's probably why they're holding it back.

The beta test teams' advantage will disappear quickly as teams get their units and build on the beta testers' data.