There are those that would *disagree*...  Initially, alt.sources was
   established as a place where the net could post sources that was not
   moderated, such as comp.sources.unix.  Its usage has evolved into a
   group where authors post beta software in hopes that people take the
   time to compile/debug them.  The author then hopes to hear of problems
   from those who took the time to look at their packages.  This approach
   forces all problems to be aired in public.  Communication with the author
   before beta testing begins is not how alt.sources works today, flooding
   the net with alpha/beta software is.
 
   Blasting sources out everywhere is not for c.s.testers.  The idea is to
   put people together to work towards improving a package.  Authors may
   not want to post alpha (read that as knowingly buggy) code to the world.
   Many times the author of a package would like to have a small group of
   people actively working on a program.  Often the author sets up a mailing
   list for the group members to use to pass ideas and bug fixes back and
   forth.  It is much easier to post "oops, I was dumb" messages to an
   isolated, much smaller, and more interactive group than to post messages
   of this type to the world.
 
   Another problem with alt.sources is that many sites do not take the
   newsgroup because they are on the end of slow links which must pay to
   receive news.  With comp.sources.testers, a site of this type can
   receive this low volume newsgroup and still be a part of the potential
   beta testing community.
 
   And as for the signal to flame ratio in alt.sources...  Never mind. :-)